


A Flickering Light

by Pookaseraph



Category: Final Fantasy XV
Genre: Coming of Age, Consensual Underage Sex, Don't Read This for the Sex, F/M, Fix-It of Sorts, Gen, Growing Up, Lestallum, May/December Relationship, Plothole Fill, Rebuilding, Slow Build, World of Ruin
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-19
Updated: 2017-04-27
Packaged: 2018-10-21 01:49:06
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Underage
Chapters: 5
Words: 67,929
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10675188
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Pookaseraph/pseuds/Pookaseraph
Summary: When Noct and her brother head to Altissia to wake Leviathan, Iris is left adrift and without obvious purpose. As twilight comes and darkness falls, she steps into the role her father left vacant, and struggles to become both a strong young woman and a leader of men.





	1. Part I - Candle in the Twilight

**Author's Note:**

> Okay, this fic sort of got out of hand, and I was never going to post it if I didn't start editing it and putting it up. This is probably my 4th go-round at this fic, so hopefully it turned out alright. Fic is complete but it's getting a decent amount of content editing, but should be fully posted in short order. 
> 
> Huge thanks to Regann, who despite having no real understanding of the FF15 canon nevertheless accepted constantly being bombarded with youtube clips and cheered me from the sidelines throughout.

.1.

As soon as Noct and the others disappeared over the horizon on their boat bound for Altissia, Iris felt an overwhelming sense of dread, sadness, and emptiness that she never could have imagined a moment earlier. No matter what everyone said, it felt like... farewell, goodbye... and she was increasingly becoming certain that Noct and the others might very well not come back. She kept a smile for Talcott, at least, as she shooed the boy out off of the pier and back into the Caem Lighthouse basement, but she couldn't shake the lead weight in the pit of her stomach.

"Go on," she said, giving the boy another wave. "I'll catch up in a bit."

"Alright, Lady Iris!" Talcott answered, scampering up the stairs and calling the elevator.

A few moments after he left, she collapsed into the ratty couch by the pier and took a deep breath, and then another. She realized that Cor was still there, sitting, obviously caught up in his own thoughts for a few minutes.

He seemed to realize that she was there a moment later, and glanced at her. "Need something?"

She didn’t know what she needed, but with the guys gone she realized that she needed to figure out what she was going to do with herself. It was all well and good to get out of Lestallum and make the journey to Caem, but that hardly accomplished anything. "I need you to be honest."

Cor turned towards her, strange look on his face, not quite his usual grumpiness, but with a touch of something else, curiosity maybe. He didn't answer with words, just gave a slight nod that indicated his agreement to her terms.

"How screwed are we?"

His first answer was a bemused smile, and then he settled back into his chair and seemed to honestly consider the question. "Back during the Old War I was introduced to a term to summarize it: FUBAR."

She knew the term, even if her father didn't like the fact that she knew it: Fucked Up Beyond All Recognition. It was sort of nice to hear that answer, even if it was almost terrifying to realize that one of the most battle-hardened soldiers in the Crownsguard had made an assessment of everything and he'd decided it was that bad.

Iris listed off the things that were eating at her and had been for some time. It had been easier to ignore when her brother or the others were around to distract her and everything around her was moving so fast, but now she had time to think: "Insomnia's fallen, but it's too fortified by the Empire to take back in the first place, much less secure without the Crystal. Shiva and Ifrit are both dead, so even though Noct's supposed to get their Blessing he just can't, really, right? The Crystal is probably crazy fortified, and the guys have... four guys, and only three of them have real combat training. And even when _\- if -_ Noct gets the Crystal back, the New Wall was amplified by technology that was destroyed by the Empire when they invaded so it can't just be set up again. So there's a city that can't be retaken, a Crystal that can't be secured, and a King who can't even make a Covenant!"

"Sounds about right," Cor answered with a nod. He didn't have much emotion in his voice, just agreeing with her, and Iris didn't know what to make of that other than to worry.

"And all I can think is that I really want to punch something."

That earned her a chuckle. "Amicitias in a nutshell. You're right, though. King Regis, your father... they've been fighting a losing war for decades, we all have."

A small part of Iris had hoped that Cor was going to tell her that everything was going to be fine, but it was almost as comforting to know that everything was pretty terrible. "So... what do we do?"

Cor shook his head. "Keep fighting, put one foot in front of the other... punch something."

Iris tugged her knee to her chest, folding her other leg under her as she tried to sift through everything that was going on in her head. Part of her wanted to complain that she was supposed to be a kid... that she wasn't old enough to deal with all of this, but the rest of her mind was reminding her of her father.

_"You are an Amicitia. We are strongest when we have someone... or something to protect. After the signing, everything will change. Be prepared to face any change you meet with steel in your spine."_

"Let's go find something productive to punch." She didn't know what she was going to punch, but by the Six it was going to be something and it wasn't going to know what hit it. She stood, and took a deep breath, before she headed up the stairs out of the Lighthouse basement, Cor following after her with a light smile on his lips.

Iris raided the small stash of leftover and left behind weaponry that the guys hadn’t taken with them, and when the two of them headed downstairs, she saw Monica looking thoughtful and Dustin just beside her.

"Marshal, Lady Iris," she greeted them. "We've just had word from some of the Hunters watching Insomnia. The majority of the troops that were fortifying the City have withdrawn."

"Lord Ravus never did return, right?" Iris asked, because she remembered there'd been word of an injury after the Citadel and then his return to Gralea and then nothing.

"So they say," Cor answered, coming up to stand by Monica and look over whatever had been set out. "Where did they go _to_?"

"South," Monica answered.

"Altissia?" Iris suggested.

"Most likely," Cor agreed. "My reports from Meldacio say that most of the Imperial presence has pulled back from Lestallum as well. I don't like it."

"So they're... gathering in Altissia to take on Noct?"

"Or the Hydraean, or both," Cor agreed again. "They were happy enough to take on the Archaean when Noct woke him."

Iris scowled, but she couldn't deny that Cor had a point. "Is there any way we could... I don't know... break the blockade at the bridge?"

"To what end?" Cor asked, not unkind but certainly demanding she think about what she hoped to gain. "There's been no hint that the Empire's promises of reconstruction have come to pass, but we haven't heard anything to suggest the citizens are unsafe... at least not right now."

"Most of the Crownsguard gave their lives to see the blockade held open long enough for the willing to leave," Monica said, and the four of them assembled around the table hung their heads for a moment. "This is likely what gave Lady Lunafreya the time to flee the destruction of the Citadel."

The entire Crownsguard... at least most of it, all of her father's men and women had been killed to keep her safe and to help those who were wise enough to evacuate. "We'll keep an eye on it," she said. "If... something goes wrong in Altissia we might need to evacuate again. Some people may have stayed believing we would be able to quickly retake the city if the Crystal was recovered."

"Reasonable," Cor agreed, and Monica and Dustin nodded soon after. "With His Majesty headed to Altissia, there's little need for the Hunters to continue to search out any Tombs. I'll rendezvous with them and keep an eye on the Niffs."

Iris looked down at her hands. "I want to help."

Cor didn't answer, just gave something that looked like a frown - or more of one than he usually did - before he considered, and nodded.

"Lady Iris," Monica began. "I'm not certain it's wise for you--"

Out of the corner of her eye, she caught a firm head shake from Cor, just briefly. She wasn't even certain she was supposed to have seen it, but she had. Monica's protest died on her lips.

"We'll leave tomorrow," Cor told her. "Pack light."

Iris spent the rest of the day out in the Caem sun, trying her hand at almost every weapon that the guys had left behind. Guns she quickly dismissed, she was far too used to getting up close with an enemy, Gladdy might look cool swinging one, but his usual greatsword was taller than she was... daggers made her want to punch something, swords less so, and she was less familiar with how to swing a smaller sword or daggers... shields and lances were a maybe... but she couldn't sort out how to make them work together.

"You're overthinking it," Cor interrupted her thoughts, much farther into the day, nearing sundown. "You're more agile than your brother, you don't want to sacrifice that just for reach or a bit more power. For now, this should do."

Cor handed over a small bundle of cloth, mostly black, and Iris took it and looked down at what Cor had given her: two fingerless Crownsguard gloves, like Prompto wore, and two carabiners hooked together. She tugged on the gloves, noting that they were snug, but flexible, and then she glanced at the carabiners again, before unhooking them and after a glance at Cor she hooked her fingers through the closed loops and realized they were impromptu punching knuckles.

"Beasts and daemons will largely be a new type of adversary for you," Cor continued. Iris nodded, she'd spent some time hunting with the guys, largely hanging back, but adding her own punch or two when she could. It was hard to get a read on the monsters, they moved so differently from a person or even an MT. "Focus on your enemy's movements first, and trust in your experience with a familiar weapon. After all, you said you wanted to punch something."

"I did say that..." She answered, smiling slightly, and flexing her fingers around the metal loops. "What are we doing exactly? Tracking down Niffs?"

"Checking the Imperial bases in the area, disrupt operations if possible, Dave's asked me to take on a few more hunts, mostly daemons," Cor answered, and then he pinched the bridge of his nose. He did that a lot, when he was strained or tired, or just didn’t seem to know what to do with his hands...

"Did you know Dave before all this?" She asked. Iris knew Cor, but in a lot of ways he was a mystery to her, distant, and she thought they shared more words in the last day than they had in the year before it.

"Not well," Cor answered. "But the Prairie Outpost and Meldacio are frequent stops of mine when I'm needed outside the city. With the collapse of the Crownsguard, we're going to need to form ties with them. You'll do well to establish a position of authority among them."

"I'm... a kid," Iris answered, because that was what she thought about Cor's idea. Cor was the marshal of the Crownsguard, he had more combat experience than most Hunters pushed all together. She was no one by comparison.

"You're the Captain presumptive of the Crownsguard while your brother is away."

That... that was sort of terrifying. "And we're going to go and punch daemons..." She took a deep breath. "I got this."

"Take it easy for the rest of the day," Cor recommended, and he sounded kind enough when he said it. Iris got the impression he was trying to walk a fine line of respect and keeping an eye on her. "There's been a few rumbles over by Longwythe and the Boulves Mines... Noct was there recently so it's possible that stirred up some long dormant activity."

"Got it." She took Cor's advice after that, spent some time playing cards with Talcott and generally tried to relax and not think about how terrifying tomorrow would be.

*

As the days passed, Cor was surprised and pleased at how easily Iris fell into the rhythm of hunting. She'd always been fit, and he supposed she'd become more used to living a bit rougher due to her trip from Insomnia to Lestallum and then Caem, but he was still a bit surprised at how quickly she had become comfortable bartering with merchants, chatting up tipsters, and beating the ever-loving shit out of whatever they were hunting.

"Necromancers," she said, coming up to him after finishing with the local tipster. "Wraith variant."

"We'll handle it on the way back to Caem," he answered, taking the phone from his ear and sliding it back into his pocket. "Monica called, there's rumors that the Oracle is going to speak tomorrow."

"That's... good, right?" Iris frowned, chewing it over in her mind. "That means she's alright, and it might mean she's ready to help Noct with Leviathan..."

"My thought as well. Grab a quick meal and head out?"

Iris checked the sky, obviously gauging the time and the encroaching darkness before she nodded. "Getting really sick of salmon though..."

Cor couldn't help but agree. "Coernix station?"

They ended up breezing through Cauthess and grabbing prepacked sandwiches, Iris sitting on the asphalt of the parking lot, using his motorcycle as a backrest while Cor chewed from his seat.

"This is terrible," she said. Cor thought it was... well it wasn't _good_ , but it was... "Still ten times better than more cheese slathered salmon."

"Mmmhmm," he agreed.

"I think that's the thing I miss the most about Lestallum," she said, staring off towards the ruined crater that used to be the Disc of Cauthess. "All those shops with all sorts of different food..."

"More authentic northern food there too," Cor said, since it seemed strange to leave the conversation hanging. Cor didn't often think about food beyond the fact that he needed to eat. He liked it to taste palatable, but he had long ago learned to not turn his nose up. Sometimes a man couldn't afford to be picky.

"Jared..." Iris took a deep breath and then continued to talk. "He took me and Talcott out to one of the restaurants and we had 'offal stew'... he said we had to try it at least once. Wasn't bad."

"You know what offal is, right?" Cor asked, not quite able to contain his smirk.

"Jared told us after. Talcott was so mad." Iris chuckled. Didn't sound like Iris had minded, but it was a bit funny to imagine Talcott's youthful indignation. "I guess it's our fault for eating something called offal in the first place! I think if I had to pick on it, it would be how spicy it was, not the fact that it was stomach... the same shop had these really amazing meat skewers though."

Cor found himself expounding on an old favorite of his from his time in Galahd, discussing what passed for local food in the Capital, that sort of thing. He felt as though Iris was bleeding off some of the hurt from the fall of Insomnia, and he was happy to let her do it.

"I think I just made this sandwich taste... so much worse," Iris said.

"Still better than Kenny's Salmon," Cor reminded her. The sun was looming low in the sky and Cor decided they should leave early so they'd get to Caem before midnight. "Grab something for the road and let's head out."

Iris shoved some beer, orange Jetty's, gysahl chips, luncheon meat, and something that was probably supposed to be power bars under the passenger's seat and then slid onto the bike behind him. "Let's go kick some daemon ass."

They made a quick trip through the winding roads of southern Duscae before arriving at the location of the hunt, and then divvied up a few potions between them. "Remember to watch for the grab," he said.

"I know."

Unlike with Gladio, it wasn't the bravado and overconfidence masking his concern, it was simply Iris assuring him that she did know, and she was ready. She slipped on a protective charm, one best against the dark magic employed by necromancers and certain other daemons, and then they headed off into the darkening forest.

They walked silently, and although he knew Iris was a natural chatterer, she always seemed to know exactly when silence was needed. When they arrived at the wooded area that supposedly housed the daemon, the two of them waited, standing carefully back to back, scanning the distance.

"Anything?" She asked, voice soft, after minutes had passed.

Cor was about to shake his head when the faint hiss of the dead began to fill the air, he didn't need to say anything else, Iris crouching into a lower stance and Cor had his blade in his hand a moment later. The battle was joined quickly, and Cor largely focused on his opponents, trusting Iris to go where needed. They had come to fall into an easy pincer position when they fought, with one or the other of them focusing on maintaining a monster's focus while the other made short work of it from behind.

Unfortunately, the daemon decided to focus on Iris while the dozens of skeleton it summoned swarmed Cor, and he was left with the task of handling those first before he could score a more direct confrontation. A few cuts of the blade later, and Cor heard the Wraith stagger, turning to note that a skeleton had been thrown directly at its head.

"Little help, Cor?" Iris asked, voice tight, and he reengaged the Wraith, drawing his sword to slash across the thing's back. He'd hoped to draw its attention, but instead he saw it begin the elaborate hand motions he knew only too well from hunter tales.

"Down!" He ordered, trusting her to obey, and he made another quick slash at the thing as it unleashed a torrent of sickly death energy.

He was able to finish it off with another slice, noting that Iris must have scored more than her share of hits on the thing for it to fold so easily.

"Nice work." He glanced over to where Iris was still on the ground. "Iris?" For one brief moment his heart froze in his chest, only for the girl to roll over, look at the sky, and groan.

"Oww, my face."

He chuckled, the brief tension there uncurling, and he reached out to help her up, only to shine enough light on her face to realize that 'my face' was actually a pretty apt description. Blood and what might be mud was smeared at her chin and cheeks.

"Wraith get you?" He asked. That was the most important thing, a quick elixir could take care of the Scourge if it was caught early, but they were frustratingly rare.

"Just a rock," she complained, and then she made it the rest of the way up, rubbing the mess against her shoulder. "That _stings_."

"Don't... rub it." He shook his head and the two of them began their journey back to the motorcycle. Thankfully they went unmolested after that. "Yeah that's going to be a mess. We'll clean it up in Caem. What the hell did you do?"

He dug out a bandage and offered it to her for her to press against the wound.

"I hit the dirt, only it's the middle of the night and there was a sharp damn rock there, it was either that or a face full of that blast, might have been able to go right but... I'll take the cut."

"Good choice."

The trip back to Caem was thankfully short, and the two of them settled on the couch while Cor began to clean out the wound. He could tell Iris was coming down from the adrenaline of the fight, her hands not exactly shaking, but certainly not still. She was... twitchy.

"Alright?" He asked, tilting his head to meet her eyes. He knew she was still new to this, a week and a bit of hunting couldn't make someone a natural at dealing with the preparation and aftermath of combat.

She shrugged. "Laughing at the irony that my first major injury was from face planting into a rock."

"I'm certain you could come up with a suitably heroic tale for it," he answered with a slight smile. "You did take out a wraith. I can't believe you used a skeleton as a weapon."

He pressed the swab of alcohol in his hand against the injury, trying to get out the last of the mud. Finally clean, he dug out an elixir and poured out enough to press against the wound.

"Seemed like a good idea at the time..." She answered, shrugging and giving him a grin.

A few dabs of ointment later, he placed a bandage at her chin. "The wound was pretty deep... will probably scar." He didn't know if that would bother her...

It seemed like it might have, if the downcast look she gave a moment later was any indication, teeth worrying her lip for a moment.

"Family tradition," she answered, finally, shaking it off at least for the moment.

The two of them shared a drink - beer for Cor, Jetty's for Iris - and discussed the hunts they had seen, the critiques Cor still had to her form, and the path she would need to walk to hone her skills further.

Although Cor was unaware of it at the time, the next day served as the final death knell for the Light across Eos. Despite frequent rumors of her demise, Lady Lunafreya found her luck finally running out... lost at sea. The Light itself didn't fade for some time, but that was the last hope that the Rotted Soil and Blighted Sky would somehow be averted...

Cor spent the day listening to the Oracle's speech, and then listening to the horrified reporting as Leviathan woke and wreaked devastation across all of Altissia. That night he spent up, going over plans and contingencies... and when the dawn broke far too late for comfort, he found Iris punching against a fence post so hard he was worried her knuckles would bleed.

"Don't waste your energy," He advised.

"Are you going to Altissia?" She asked. Noctis had yet to awaken, but she knew that the guys needed to head to Cartanica, seeking the Tomb of the Warrior and then on to the Crystal in Gralea.

He shook his head. "Work to do here."

"Leave early tomorrow?" She asked.

He nodded. "Of course."

.2.

The next few weeks were a scramble. Noct remained comatose for a good part of it, and Iris and Cor fought through the local hunts, checking in with the local towns, clearing out the hunt rosters, trying to keep things stable. There was still a laundry list of things that were wrong with the world, and Iris had a solution for none of them. They were back in Caem for a breather, and to celebrate everything still being a mess, she had a Jetty's with breakfast because who was going to tell her not to have soda for breakfast? No one, that was who.

"Um... Lady Iris?" She looked over to see Talcott looking small and worried.

"Yeah?"

"Is your chin ok?" He asked. Iris pressed a hand to scuffed and pink scar there, trying not to let it bother her. Gladdy had plenty of scars, but a small part in the back of her head told her she was supposed to be cute and dainty, not cut up like Gladdy... but she could hardly keep that belief if she was going to hunt regularly.

She assured him she was fine, even if she didn't feel it.

"So... um while you were gone..." Talcott started, looking nervous and worried. "There was a professor on the radio, and she said that nights were getting longer... three hours since last solstice and a half-hour in one day two weeks ago..."

Iris had known that, sort of, in the back of her mind. It was darker and darker when she woke, and if she woke with the dawn it was later and later... "Did the professor know what was causing it?"

"No, but... when the last Oracle, Lady Sylva, was killed, the nights got an hour longer over the four years before Lady Lunafreya Ascended..." Talcott began a slight ramble after that. "But it's already been three hours... and there are stories about times from the Founder King, how... how the day was just twilight... before he pushed the Dark back with the Oracle..."

She added that to the laundry list, a sinking feeling in the pit of her stomach as she did. "The... Oracle is the one who keeps this from happening?" She asked.

Talcott shrugged, since he clearly didn't know, but it was also obvious that they were without an Oracle, and unless Lord Ravus suddenly turned coat and had a daughter they were not going to have a new Oracle of the Fleuret line... ever.

"Thanks for the info," Iris said, and since the lead in her stomach didn't keep her from her usual self she reached out and grabbed the boy's shoulder. "You've been a huge help."

"Not as much as you."

"Well... we all help in our own ways," she said, as reasonably as she could. She could fight, so she did, Talcott had a pretty sharp brain, and knew his history, and it was probably for the best right now that he did.

She joined Cor outside a bit later.

"Talcott tell you about this whole Eternal Twilight thing?" She asked Cor. He nodded. "You think...?"

"I think you've read the Book of Nadir at least once," Cor answered, handing over a helmet to Iris and the two of them sped off to the north west.

'O're rotted Soil, under blighted sky'... Iris held onto Cor as they sped towards Meldacio, a quick stop in Telpar for lunch. They arrived at Meldacio near dusk... at three in the afternoon.

Cor and Dave shook hands and Iris hung back for a moment before she made her own greeting.

"Iris, right?" He asked. She nodded. "Heard good things." They shook hands and then the man handed over a thin chain with a pair of tags on it. Iris looked down at it, shocked for a brief moment, before she pulled the chain over her neck.

She didn't know if she deserved the marker of status, she'd never done a hunt without Cor or Gladdy, but she took the chain and pulled it over her head.

"We've been hearing nothing good since Lady Lunafreya left us," Dave said, ushering the two of them to a gathering area. "Havens are holding, but Doc Sonia's telling us we've got six months of light at the outside if things keep up like they're going."

"And the worst case?" Iris asked, not sure she wanted to know, but knowing she still needed to hear it.

"She won't put it on the radio for fear of causing panic but... two weeks."

Iris did some quick head math, as far as she knew Noct had awoken a few days ago, but the train across Gralea and a boat across the ocean would be almost that long... even if Noct could fix everything with the Crystal it would be a while.

"Thoughts?" Cor asked, reading her pensive expression.

"Without the Crystal, Lestallum is the only place that could keep the lights on... some to the south if the lines stayed up. It... might make sense to cannibalize the Crown City for... everything." She remembered the devastation around the Citadel, hundreds of thousands of people had died in under an hour... "The suburbs still have people, too. They might be safe from the Empire, but as soon as daemons have hours of free rein..."

Cor nodded. "There were rumors of daemons in the city already."

Iris gave Cor a look that hopefully said exactly how she felt about this being the first time she'd heard that news. Cor at least had the decency to look away for a moment.

"We have to use the time we have to plan and prepare," Iris said, knowing even as she said it that it was what her father would have focused on. "The Crown City can't be secured against daemons without power, and the EXINERIS lines don't go that far... so we need to focus on Lestallum for now, and see about securing the southern parts of Cleigne after that's settled..."

"Of course, Captain," Cor answered, with something that almost seemed like a salute, straightening, heels together.

Iris tamped down on her surprise and shock at being addressed like that, Cor knew just as well as she did that her father was Cor's Captain, not her... but then she realized her audience... Dave... and Cor saying in a language that the man would understand that Cor would follow her.

"We need to move on this," she said, finally. "Dave, any men you could spare would make securing things easier and more efficient."

Dave nodded. "I'll see who I can find."

The man left, and Cor came close enough to have a whispered conversation. "Are you alright with this?"

"With raiding my home and scrapping it for parts?" Iris asked. "No, Cor... I'm not alright with it... but that's what we need to do, isn't it? It's not about what I like or what I want." She felt tears prickle in her eyes as she thought about her home, bombed out and shattered, good for nothing but the things inside it... devoid of the spirit that made it the Crown City...

"It's the right choice," he assured her, voice still low.

"And don't keep things from me," she hissed, turning to face him head on, her voice probably a mix of hard and petulant, but she didn't care. "Don't call me 'Captain' and then act like I shouldn't know that there were already daemons inside the Crown City."

Cor closed his eyes, and Iris could see that whatever she'd said hit home, and he nodded. "I'm sorry."

Iris actually felt a moment of shock at the apology.

"I'm struggling to..." He searched for words that were obviously hard for him. "You're Clarus's daughter, and you're also far more suited to take his place than Gladio is. That doesn't mean a part of me doesn't want to protect you from everything that's coming."

"You can't," she said. "On the field... sure... but here? You can't."

He gave a brief nod. "You're right... Captain."

"That's sorta weird though, Iris is fine..." She chuckled, trying to loosen the fear in her chest and accept that Cor was trying. She could hardly blame him, she was trying too, and it wasn't easy at all. "Ugh, how do you even supply a city? How much food do you need? Where are people going to go?!"

"I'm afraid Ignis would be the best to answer that," Cor said, shaking his head. "He studied for years to know the basics of managing the city, its resources, and the needs of the populace. The Empire dissolved Lestallum's council, so we may have to defer to them, if we can find the former members."

"Right..." Iris frowned. "Grab everything, hope for the best. I'm worried about securing Lestallum against the Imperials," she admitted.

"I'm fairly certain they'll be the least of our concerns if night falls permanently. Even the Emperor can't ignore the needs of Gralea to hold onto a city that serves as little more than a monument to his vanity. The Hydraean destroyed most of their air fleet as well, so troop movements will be restricted."

"... Thanks, Leviathan..." Iris whispered, not certain she meant it but it was their good fortune now.

The next few days were a blur. Iris, Cor, and the Hunters that Dave had been able to assemble made their strike on the Crown City. It was embarrassingly easy to retake the bridge into Cavaugh with the lightened guard, Iris had been able to take down two of the smaller war mechs without much of a sweat while Cor and a few others had secured the gun batteries to protect their flanks.

She and Dave led the strike to secure the Crown Archives, and Dustin was brought in the next day to begin coordinating the packing of the few long haul cargo freighters that were still in commission.

"Back before the Wall got shrunk, freighters on the Lucinia Sound would bring goods all the way to Pallareth Pass to deliver to Lestallum," Dave said while Iris tried to figure out what they were supposed to do and where the hell they were going to put everything. Monica and Talcott were in Lestallum coordinating the receiving of whatever they got out of the City.

"Before my time," Iris admitted. She'd only really heard stories of the outside world from her father or Jared. "Lestallum's gonna burst if we shove all these people into it."

"People will just have to squeeze tight for now," Dave answered, even though Iris knew it wasn't that simple. "Looting will be a problem."

Iris nodded, already the signs of it were everywhere in Insomnia, liquor stores and the groceries were the first to go, windows bashed in and goods stolen. "For now we have to keep the peace," she answered. "And see what we can do to make sure the power stays flowing. Most of Cleigne has power from Lestallum, but one downed power line..."

"Yup, and don't forget, a desperate man'll kill his mama for one more meal."

Iris didn't like that at all. "We don't let it get there," she said. "It won't matter if the daemons get us if humans start acting that way..." Iris took a deep breath. "We keep them fed and safe... that's all we can do, at least for now."

They gathered and pulled as much as they could together, and Iris was shocked and delighted to find that Ignis's uncle had survived the attack and had been coordinating rationing as best he could.

When they had finally raided all that could be packed and boxed, Iris made one final visit... the main audience chamber of the Citadel, where the treaty had been scheduled to be signed.

Cor stood at her side, silent.

The room stunk of putrid flesh and worse, Iris gagged as soon as she pushed open the door, and almost lost the contents of her stomach when the full weight of the smell hit her. She had seen corpses scattered around the city, but exposed to the elements as they were they were more bone than flesh. The bodies of the various ministers were strewn about, and Iris couldn't even tell which had been women and which men from how bloated the corpses were.

Her eyes finally found her father's sword, buried deep in one of the walls almost a dozen feet up. Below the sword was a body clad in minister's robes, split from chest to throat, a bloody smear telling the story of the corpse tumbling down from the sword as ribs and bones had given out in death.

A sob escaped her lips, a sound she hadn't allowed herself but a handful of times since Insomnia had fallen.

"Do what you need to do," Cor said, his voice was hard, and she turned and almost started to yell at him, only to see his own face was tight and his eyes closed, the beginning of wetness in his own eyes. Her father was Cor's friend too... his Captain... of course he was hurting, he just didn't show it the way Iris did.

Iris moved to grab a chair, and brought it over to the wall, hoisting herself up to try to reach the sword only to find she was still too short. A few moments later, Cor came and wrapped her waist in his arms, hiking her up farther as he stepped onto the chair, and between the two of them Iris managed to draw the sword and not let it clatter to the ground.

The body... she found herself looking at it, pushing down the smell, it didn't even look like her father anymore, most of the corpses had no hair, perhaps his tattoos would remain, but... instead she reached out to his neck, undoing a single button to find the thin chain at his throat, a few fumbles with the clasp and the chain and her mother's ring came free in her hand. She carefully set them on the ground, the beautiful gem setting covered in gunk whose origin she didn't want to think about. Next she reached for her father's hand, grabbing the Amicitia signet ring there and finding that the finger it rested on was too bloated to allow it to come free. A few more tugs, and she felt a gentle hand on her shoulder.

Cor knelt beside her, his wakizashi unsheathed. He waited, almost asking for permission, and Iris nodded and winced through the sickening crunch of flesh and bone that came when Cor brought the blade down. She fumbled with the severed finger for a moment, claiming the ring, and then setting it beside her mother's.

"Get cleaned up," Cor said, reaching down and picking up the rings and sword. "I'll tend to these."

She spent a half hour crying in one of the empty Citadel bathrooms, feeling as though her hands still smelled like death she hadn't dealt and hadn't welcomed. She didn't know why she needed those things... but she felt that she did, that her father's sword... and those rings... they meant something... and it had been months since Insomnia fell and yet that was the first time she'd cried for her father.

When she arrived at the port where they had packed the freighters, Cor held out his hand, twin rings sitting in the middle of his palm, they were surprisingly clean, and Iris picked them up, holding them in her hand before closing her fist around them.

"The sword will take some time, there's a bladesmith in Lestallum named Randolph who will know what to do with it."

"Thank you."

After a brief moment, Cor reached out a hand and placed it on her shoulder, he didn't say anything else, but he didn't move away. The two of them leaned against the edge of the freighter as it prepared to set sail towards Pallareth Pass, much of what made Insomnia still left behind, but some food and people... at least that could be saved.

They were an hour or so into the Lucinia Sound when Iris pulled off her Hunter tags and carefully threaded the chain with the two rings to go with the tags, and then pulled the mess back over her neck.

"Did you..." Iris didn't know how to ask. "Did you take anything from home?" Iris had deferred to practicality and grabbed some of her clothes and books and her modest sewing machine, she hadn't even gotten things for Gladdy because _he_ had left the Crown City intending a long trip, but it was still only enough to fit in a small bag. She wondered if Cor had even done that.

"I found one of Monica's cats," Cor answered.

Iris heard that to mean that even if Cor had gone to his Crownsguard apartment, he wasn't going to speak of what he had or hadn't left there.

"That'll make her happy," Iris answered, although they both knew that it was a small happiness in a wave of horribleness.

"Better, the damn thing tried to eat my hand."

Iris snorted at that, and Cor answered with a smile. A moment later, Cor's phone began to chime, and Iris straightened, waiting for whatever news was about to come, and hoping even if it was bad... they'd be able to make it work.

*

Cor took a step back from the railing of the freighter and answered his phone.

"Leonis."

"Hey, this is tall, dark, and immortal, right?" A woman's voice Cor was unfamiliar with came through his phone. She sounded slightly sultry, but with an odd undertone of business.

"Depends," he answered.

"Aranea Highwind," she introduced herself. One of the Commodores of the Imperial Army. Cor bristled, he'd never met her in one on one combat, but he'd heard more than a few rumors of her prowess. "My boys Biggs and Wedge just got a hello from a mutual friend, Specs. They're in Zegnautus Keep and are fishing for an extraction."

"And?" Cor asked, because he wasn't going to trust her say-so even though it was highly unlikely she would have gotten his number from someone other than the retainers.

"My condition was more muscle, he offered you up."

"I'm on a freighter in the Lucinia Sound," he said, not certain if that was the right call, but if Ignis had legitimately asked for an extraction he could hardly leave them to flounder. "You might do well to come unarmed if you want me to believe your good intentions."

"I make a point of not getting naked for a man until he's bought me a few dinners," she answered, and Cor snorted at the lewdness and the insinuations about her physical prowess. Not his usual back and forth with a Niff, but it was slightly more pleasant at least. "I'll make an exception, we can take my ride. Be there in under thirty."

Cor hung up and slid his phone away, looking back over to where Iris was standing. "Ignis called in a favor with an _Imperial Commodore_."

"Aranea?" Iris asked, surprising Cor slightly. Iris read his expression quickly. "Yeah apparently she and the guys got into a tussle when they were busting up that base in Cleigne, and then she helped them get that mythril when Gladdy was off doing that training thing with you. Ignis mentioned her support of the Empire was wavering... and Prompto thinks that conflicted bad girls are hot."

Cor couldn't help but shake his head at that, but young men would be young men. "I'm surprised your brother doesn't have an opinion on the matter."

Iris gave him a look that he was pretty sure meant 'are you stupid'.

"I see," he answered. "But I take that to mean you think she's trustworthy."

"Trusthworthy? I don't know, but if she's helping then she's helping. Based on what the guys said she's pretty straightforward." Cor had heard similar about her abilities in combat, so he supposed that fit.

"Well, she's picking us up in a half hour."

"What?"

Cor nodded. "Ignis contacted her and asked for an evacuation of Zegnautus Keep. That's the Imperial equivalent to the Citadel, so it won't be easy, but if he had enough presence of mind and communication tech to make the request, they're probably at least on the move within the Keep."

"Won't it take us days to get there?" Iris asked, biting her lower lip. "That's what you said about the guys and the yacht."

"Imperial transport should take a few hours." Cor was almost amused for a moment, realizing that Iris had never been beyond Lestallum, that every time she'd traveled somewhere out of the city it had been new for her, but it was also... distressing to realize how much the world of Lucis had collapsed and grown smaller in the last thirty years.

"That's still pretty long..." Iris said, but he knew that a few hours wouldn't be too long if they actually secured the Crystal and Noct.

They didn't have time to think about that, so Cor waited, their promised airlift arriving as scheduled, and Cor went against every ounce of his better judgement to enter the lair of an Imperial agent, Iris following just after him.

"Yo," Aranea greeted them, a casual wave her own acknowledgement, her back to them. Cor recognized the gesture for what it was, making herself just vulnerable enough to make him trust her. "Buckle in, we need to move quickly."

Cor did as he was told, Iris strapping in behind him, and the two of them let the woman blaze off to the West. Aranea also proved to be quite chatty, confirming her retirement from the Imperial ranks, and offering up more intelligence than Cor had heart out of Gralea in over ten years.

"The skies over the city have darkened of late," Aranea said. "Three weeks, maybe, it's been nothing but twilight, and then a week or so ago the rumor came that the various daemons had been broken out of their containment areas."

"Intentional?" Iris asked, voice horrified.

"Probably. The Emperor'd been out of his mind for a few weeks as well, going on and on about how he's the King of Light... Let's just say I'm happy to have made a little detour in my loyalties. Biggs and Wedge are cleaning up the mess they made on the outskirts of town, and doing a little evacuation of anyone who's still alive in the city. It's been a mess for weeks, though... at least from what they heard."

They skimmed the land over Cartanica, Tenebrae, and then into Gralea, and Cor watched the land go from dusty brown to ice white and then to inky, soul-sucking black. The dropship circled around the spire of Zegnautus, Cor and Iris leaning against the window before Iris pointed. "There! That's Gladdy."

He was standing against an Iron Giant, seemingly trying to keep a defensive line.

"I can't set down there," Aranea answered. "Too much interference, we'd get shredded like a tin can."

"I guess we make a hole, then?" Iris asked, and Cor nodded in response.

"Keep us steady," Cor instructed, and then he accepted a communicator pressed into his hand by Aranea, and he joined Iris at the back of the drop ship. "Watch your shoulders and knees, the landing--"

"This I've got, Cor." She then took a flying leap out of the back of the ship, and Cor watched with morbid fascination as she kicked right into the Giant and sent it toppling.

Cor landed a few seconds later, and noted the scene. Prompto was set up on the opposite side of Gladio, and between them was Ignis, holding onto a cane for dear life, something that looked like burns on one side of his face, doling out potions and other curatives. There was one very obvious missing piece, however.

"Where is His Majesty?" Cor asked.

He saw Iris dart behind her brother and watched as her own face took in his words and the lack of Noct. Ignis's head bowed.

"Gladio?" Cor asked.

"We're not sure," Gladio answered. "He went to the Crystal chamber and then... it sucked him in. Ardyn was there, the Chancellor... Prompto shot him right in the head and he didn't die."

"His Majesty is in the Crystal?" Cor asked, clarifying. That was... well he wasn't well studied on the Cosmogony, but he knew the Lucian line was bound to the Crystal.

"We think he might be," Ignis answered. "He is not outside of it, and if the Crystal placed him elsewhere, we're unaware of it."

"But..." Iris looked around. "But..." Cor was concerned she was about to cry, he didn't want to face her crying again. He watched her mouth tighten after that, pushing down her tears, and Cor felt a mix of pride and sadness as she did. "Aranea needs us to clear a gap so she can land. Let's do it."

He and Iris had only faced one Iron Giant together, and from it Cor knew that the heavy cutting would be on him but that Iris was still damn good where it counted. Cor gave a tilt of his head and Iris nodded, running at him only for him to kneel and boost her up, she kicked off at the height of his lift and went steel-toed boot first into the Giant's throat. Cor followed immediately after with a viciously drawn slash at the thing's knees.

It would have been humorous if the game wasn't so deadly, but the Giant's focus switched to Iris, and the idiotic behemoth even made a swing with his own sword to try to whack the girl from her perch at one of its shoulders. Iris darted behind its head, still holding on, and then giving a vicious heel to its spine. Another minute or so with Gladio at his side saw the thing down, with Prompto picking off most of the smaller daemons before sending up a bright flare that caused the surrounding daemons to flee for long enough to produce a landing pad.

"Ignis?" Cor asked, sheathing his sword and finally looking at the man. With the brighter light of the flare in the sky, Cor could see that both of his eyes were closed, even as he tilted his head towards Cor. "Hand on my elbow, let's go."

He roughly guided Ignis's hand, and the man followed without additional comment, Cor going perhaps a bit too fast, but they were at the sealed door of the transport just as it downed and he had Ignis in the back in just a few more seconds.

"The Crystal?" Iris asked, skidding to a halt at the back of the transport.

"The daemons closed ranks around it the second we stepped away," Gladio answered... "Ardyn... didn't even seem surprised about Noct, or anything..."

"The Chancellor has played us and our willingness to allow his help," Ignis said, fumbling with his hand against one of the grips. "It's clear he knows far more than he has revealed, and I think his intent was to see Noct to the Crystal."

"What does that get him?" Iris asked.

"Well the Crystal slurped him," Prompto said.

Cor shook his head. "The Chosen King will be anointed in the Light of the Crystal. No one really knows what that _means_ , but it sounds like from what you're saying Chancellor Izunia knew what would happen?"

"Yeah," Gladio answered.

"You believe it to be a preordained step of the Prophecy?" Ignis asked.

He didn't know how to answer. He knew how much Regis's demeanor had changed when he found out that Noct was to be the Chosen King, he knew how much that weighed on Clarus when he realized his son would serve the Chosen King... "I think eternal twilight has fallen across Gralea and will hit Lucis in months at the latest. We have other things to worry about right now. We'll plan another offensive on the Crystal after we make sure we aren't going to die tomorrow."

"He's our _King_ ," Gladio said, and he took a threatening step towards Cor. "We can't just--"

"Gladdy!" Iris said, voice annoyed, stepping between Cor and her brother. "There's more to it than Noct... I know what Dad told you about being the People's Shield."

Cor was unaware, but he saw Gladio step away from his sister and flex a hand, obviously angry at the memory or the thought.

"Dad knew..." Iris said, a moment later, taking her own step back and then looking towards Cor for confirmation. "Didn't he?"

"He and Regis were no fools," Cor answered. "Do you think it was an accident I was ordered to be outside of the Citadel and Regis left me the Key to the Royal Tombs ahead of the signing?"

Those two idiots... always protecting Cor, even when he didn't ask for it. He couldn't even say he was glad to have the life he did... another King lost, another battle lost, and yet he continued to live and sometimes he didn't know why.

"We must see to Master Cid in Cartanica," Ignis said a moment later. "And then return to Lucis with all haste. The rumors of an encroaching darkness have been growing more ardent of late. How many hours of daylight remain?"

"Gralea has been covered in twilight for three weeks," Cor answered. "At least according to the rumors. Sunup this morning was... ten?" He glanced to Iris.

"Ten fifteen... well eighteen... I checked in with Sonia, she's been watching it. Sundown will be no later than five o' two."

"Less than seven hours..." Ignis said. "My understanding is the day should be closer to eleven and a half during this time of year."

"It's not actually sunup and sundown," Iris said after a moment. "It's just that you can't see the sun on the horizon, it's still there, and Sonia said that the cellphones still working... and radios, that's because everything's still circling, just we can't see it."

"Daylight's still daylight," Gladio answered. "And there's been less and less of it over the past months."

"My understanding is the worst case estimate has been moved back, Professor Yaeger gives us three weeks of daylight probably," Cor said. "Unless there's another big dark like there was a few weeks back. She doesn't think we have more than a few months even at the best case, though."

"Beg pardon," Ignis said. "Total darkness?"

"Perpetual twilight at best," Cor answered. "Talcott says there's some old documents about that from the Founder King's time."

"That... the impact on the global ecology..." Ignis said.

"We've evacuated farmers and some animals," Iris said. "From Insomnia I mean, but there's not really anywhere to put them."

Ignis began to list off more than a few things that were terrible and wrong with the state of affairs if the world fell into darkness.

At least that got the assembled men and women to agree that the problem ahead of them needed their attention. Cor didn't like his options one bit, but his damn King didn't give him much choice beyond what he'd advised Iris a few weeks ago: place one foot ahead of the other and keep moving.

The trip to Cartanica was made in relatively silence, with Cor not certain he appreciated the addition of Cid's yammering to their small flight crew once they got there. Aranea got the yacht lashed to the underside of the transport and they made good time across the Ocean before parking the yacht near the Pass where the freighters were, and then blazed down the Telpar Crag and had a pleasant stop right on the Lestallum Overlook.

"Gratified as always," Ignis said as the lot of them disembarked.

"Sweet talker," Aranea answered, but despite her tone Cor saw an amused smile on her lips. "Well, you have my number... Biggs, Wedge and I are going to take a few more circuits of Gralea and Tenebrae, see if we dig up more survivors."

Most of the rest of their troubles were put on hold, at least until the next morning.

Royal privilege and a few gil meant the retainers were able to set themselves up in the nicest room in the Leville, and Cor found a comfortable enough bed in a local worker flophouse.

"Space is going to be a nightmare," Cor said to Monica the next morning. Already the first of the shipping containers were lined end to end in the covered overpass north of Lestallum. Traffic was already a mess and people would have been complaining louder if the feeling in the air wasn't getting dire.

"Security around the crates has already gotten... touchy," Monica answered.

His phone beeped: _pos?_ Cor blinked confused for a moment, he much more frequently expected 'wru?!' He answered with 'containers north of town' and Iris was there twenty minutes later.

"Ignis is setting up with Talcott in whatever passes for a government building, Gladio is meeting up with the farmers to try to make some sort of pens... and Prompto is joining up with some hunters to bring in some animals live. And we...?" Iris waited.

"Have upwards of hundreds of thousands of refugees about to hit the town in the next weeks," Monica answered.

"And nowhere to put them..." Iris sighed. "This happened when Cleigne first got invaded right?"

"And Galahd and everywhere else," Cor answered. Lucis was a city of refugees in its own right, refugees from the Empire... now Lestallum would need to house refugees from the darkness.

"How did Lucis handle that?" Iris asked.

Monica coughed.

"Shittily built slums," Cor answered.

"... Oh."

Cor didn't really expect an aristocratic young girl to know much about the crappy parts of her own city, but she could hardly remain in ignorance for much longer if she intended to make productive decisions.

"Can we... do any better than that?" She asked.

"The city has a reasonable stockpile of cement and rebar," Monica answered. "And some stucco, and glass... but not nearly enough to build more than two or three large buildings. Space use is... generous, but most private owners will be unwilling to accommodate refugees without compensation."

Iris's brow furrowed as she considered the problem. "Large buildings would hold...?"

"A few hundred families in close quarters, assuming we could find somewhere to break ground."

"Six," she said. "This is what Dad felt every day, isn't it?"

Cor placed a hand on her shoulder and gave a firm squeeze.

"Alright... um... so we need crappy slums..."

Cor snorted.

"Shush."

She took a few moments and then began to pace. Cor was familiar with it, Clarus had two reactions to trouble: pacing and deathly silence.

"Ground... um, there's a lot of rock over the crater for the meteor, and... um, the power plant sort of circles around the lip? Could we make space there?"

Cor shrugged, as did Monica.

"Perhaps, Lady Iris, but we will have strains on the water purification resources, and new pipes needed. Power will be less of a problem. Ignis will likely have a better idea of the scope of the needs after a few days. And that still doesn't address the scarcity of building resources."

"Right..." Iris continued to pace.

"The other sides of the Plant also aren't well-lit," Cor added. "We can't just have the housing left in the dark, that just makes the refugees fodder for daemons."

"There's some right on the lip," Iris said, but Cor could tell she wasn't debating the core point, just making it clear that there was some light that flooded out of the Plant proper. "Just not enough to lay claim to any surrounding areas."

A car horn honked, and Cor glared over at whatever asshole decided that a whole damn lane wasn't enough for his car.

"Do we have any room for the things in the crates?" Iris asked a moment later. "Food... raw goods..."

"Some," Monica answered. The three of them went back and forth on the storage available to the city, areas that could take the goods, problems with keeping them secured. For now keeping most of them in the crates made the most sense.

Several hunters and Monica kept the watch over the incoming shipping containers, and Cor and Iris made a circuit of the town, examining everything and trying to figure out where room could be made.

"On the edge of the Crag?" She asked, the two of them examining the Overlook. Cor didn't necessarily think that would be a great idea, but he couldn't deny that if they could get the supports together it might work. He made a note of it to mention to Ignis. "Will people bring... stuff with them?"

Cor shrugged. "I remember the fall of Galahd the most vividly," he admitted. That had taken place when he was in his twenties. "Most came with little more than the clothes on their back, perhaps a few trinkets or a bag of things from home."

He and Iris examined the edges of town, where the pathways of the city gave way to the hard stone of the mountains between Lestallum and the Vesperpool. Cor used his reputation to get them into the edge of the power plant and look over the rocky edges of the crater and the light cast there.

"Yaknow, Lestallum's sort of... short."

"Earthquakes," Cor answered, from the Disc.

"From Titan."

Cor nodded, that was the generally agreed upon answer.

"He's gone, right?" Iris said. "Could we build up? Still no materials..." Iris sighed, and Cor watched her ruffle her own hair, annoyed and irritated. "Wait... could we..." She frowned, and Cor watched her think for a few moments. "The shipping containers."

"We have very little by way of raw materials in them, Insomnia has never been a strong producer of wood or stone."

"But they're big metal boxes," she said. "Couldn't they be... little... campers?"

Cor considered the option. "I know some people converted them back in Insomnia, it was more a... vanity project than anything meant to provide more housing. No matter what I said, there was housing built, it was just... adequate at best. Those boxes aren't insulated, have no foundation..."

"But they're a roof and four walls, right?" Iris asked, sounding more excited by the moment. "And we have hundreds of them..."

"Thousands," Cor corrected. I didn't remember the exact number, but they had three smaller freighter boats, and each one held an enormous amount. "Converting them to something that is livable..." He looked into Iris's face and he saw hope, and a look that Cor could only interpret as begging, but he didn't know if she wanted him to tell her the truth or a lie... "It's not going to be trivial, but for now we can get some to serve as flophouses. It's a roof, which is more than I can say of the options we had before."

Iris smiled at him, grinning ear to ear. "A roof. I'll take it."

His phone chimed again and he drew it out. A message from Dustin with only an address. Cor flashed it to Iris and the two of them made their way through the dirty Lestallum streets.

"We'll need to find buildings with roof access... and I think the Plant has a crane... that can be our first go to."

"The Overlook will be a decent place to start as well," Cor added. "Plenty of space... and if we have constant night there won't be much to see. We'll look at unloading... metal, plumbing supplies, fabric... containers that we'll need to use the contents of. This will be the work of months."

"I'm not scared of the work," Iris answered.

"Of course not," Cor answered. No Amicitia was, and he doubted Iris would be any different.

They found the building Dustin had pointed him to, not that far from the eastern edge of town, a smaller space that looked like it used to be a public gym. Much of the gear was in disuse, but Cor imagined at least three quarters of it would be usable after some maintenance.

Dustin greeted them both with a nod: "Communal showers, locker rooms, exercise equipment, a few mats, and a small number of private office areas," Dustin listed off the various amenities one after the other.

Iris glanced around, and Cor watched as realization dawn on her face. "Crownsguard HQ?"

Cor nodded, and gave her a faint smile. He wasn't certain they'd find an easy space, but Cor knew there was no way they wouldn't need the various Hunter recruits to train and learn to accommodate hunting in the dark.

"I love it," she said. "Roof access?"

Dustin shook his head.

"Don't live where you work," Cor advised.

"Says the guy with a room in the Citadel," Iris shot back, before she seemed to realize that he _didn't_ have a room in the Citadel any longer, and her face fell for a brief moment. Cor watched her shove down the emotion there, hand going to her throat where he knew her mother's wedding ring and her father's signet ring rested.

When she had collected herself, Cor answered: "Which just means I know what I'm saying."

"Alright... but I'm calling dibs on the pinkest shipping container we can find," she said, and Cor had to chuckle in response.

In the end, she had to settle for purple on the roof of the bar just beside the main thoroughfare at the Overlook. It was one of the few roofs that was easy to access with a crane and had a functional back alley staircase to reach the roof on foot. Ignis and his Uncle managed to find a small apartment near the Disc itself, Gladio found himself a resident of 'number one most purple road' with his younger sister, and Prompto decided that lack of roof access be damned he was going to live on top of the Crownsguard building, with an added bunk space for Talcott, much to the consternation of the families living on the top floor of the building who had to deal with Prompto climbing into, and out of, the top floor hall window. Cor suspected that was the main reason that their headquarters received the first roof-to-roof causeway, if only to keep Prompto from continually invading the upper floors.

Cor settled into a 'tasteful' lime green container in the first batch of containers to be settled and lashed into place. He complained constantly that he was subjected to a purple eyesore of a neighbor, which only made Iris and Gladio laugh harder. It was small, and a few weeks later it was still little more than a barely insulated metal box with a thin pad on the floor, but it was home... or at least he suspected it would be in time.


	2. Dancing Light in the Dark

.3.

Iris woke early, a habit that had oddly happened more and more the less light they got. They were five weeks into their new world, and just like Sonia had predicted they had about two hours of light and an almost interminable twilight the rest of the time when it wasn't full dark.

She made her brief trip to the Crownsguard HQ, finding Cor was also there already, working through a quick form. Iris picked up the tonfas that Cor had her working with of late. They split the difference between a need for reach against fang and claw while allowing her to stay agile to punch and kick.

"Hey," she greeted him, and he nodded.

They moved silently through their own stretching, and then the two of them retired to the tiny office they shared. It wasn’t much, just a long table where they could sit catty-corner from each other, a map of Cleigne on a high table, and a board that held the dozens of reports that came in throughout the endless nights. Iris’s ‘side’ had little personality aside from a memento photo of her, Gladdy and her dad, while Cor’s was completely barren.

"Did Ignis explain the gil thing to you?" Iris asked, because she considered herself pretty smart, but Ignis had definitely rushed the explanation.

"Which part?" Cor asked, and he pulled out a key and unlocked the small safe they’d been able to find and presented the log sheet and Iris signed by her name without even thinking. He then handed her a packet neatly labeled with her name.

"All of it?"

Cor chuckled. "Well, Ignis would still be better to explain it in economic terms, but when goods are scarce and people don't really feel money has value, they want _stuff_ not money. Dave has been asking us to consider a pay change, so..."

He gestured to the envelope that usually held a few thousand gil, and Iris opened it up and tilted the contents on the desk and leafed through it. Instead of coins and bills it held small cards that Iris picked up and inspected: _4oz meat_. "Huh..." She noted a signature stamp that looked like Ignis's and then a small additional one, countersigned by his uncle. She flipped through a few more of them, noting they were good for vegetables, canned meat... and... "I have an alcohol allowance?"

Cor smiled slightly in response. "It's part of the pay packet."

"And cigarettes!?" She glared at the thing. Her father would have _killed_ her. "How's this any better than money? Who's going to give me cigarettes for a little card?"

"Who's going to give you a slab of meat for gil?" Cor countered, and Iris had to admit she didn't know the answer to that either. "And the answer is... Monica, for the most part. The Commissary will take those, it gets the things from Insomnia into the hands of people, and the Hunters can use these for barter because we'll always give a pack of cigarettes for the chit. It's more... rudimentary, but trust me when I say it's easier to believe in the tangible when you don't believe civilization is nearby."

"So... no one wants gil because it's not really good for anything, but people will take: 'one alcoholic drink' because it's real?" Iris frowned at the tickets again. "But..."

"But?" Cor asked.

"I need sewing stuff! And... and you need a bed! Don't think me and Gladdy didn't notice, he's going to make you a frame when things settle down."

Cor didn't protest, but he did smile slightly. "You were complaining just the other day that the fabric merchant didn't want gil."

"Yeah, I had to promise him some redstone shards for--- oh..." It sort of clicked all together after that. Sure the Hunters were paying her in food and booze and a few generic tokens that were 'worth gil' in the Commissary (but weren't gil), but in the end she was going to need to trade, not just rely on the goods she received. "Weird."

"Don't spend your cigarettes all in one place," Cor answered.

"Do you smoke?" Iris asked. She'd never seen him smoke, but...

"No," he answered. "Even when I was younger, sending a salary up in smoke didn't seem like a great idea." Iris knew Cor had been in the Crownsguard for thirty two years, so he'd been... younger than her, even.

"Did you get a cigarette allowance?"

"Ten a day on the front," Cor answered.

Iris inspected the cards. "Two packs a week? Doesn't Terry smoke a pack a day?"

Cor nodded. "And that's officer pay, one a week for the rank and file."

Iris somehow didn't think it was particularly fair that she got two packs a week, even if she didn't need them, but she also knew she had started to deal with a lot more of the duties that were part of the running of the Hunter-Crownsguard mix. On top of that, with only a few months of training she'd already surpassed most of the less experienced hunters in her combat skills.

"What did you spend your cigarettes on?" Iris asked, because the whole idea was fascinating, it was clear that on the front, back during the Old War, there was a whole different way of living that Iris didn't exactly understand...

She caught an oddly open glance at Cor's face, he almost seemed young and boyish in that moment, and perhaps even a little embarrassed. "Gum, black tea, this terrible lemon drink powder that makes Jetty's seem like fine dining... and chocolate biscuits."

Iris snorted, and she saw Cor's answering smile.

"The guys used to love it: Cor the Immortal... sitting on the parapets and eating chocolate biscuits." It seemed like it was some sort of fond memory for Cor, or at least one that didn't have the same mix of bitterness that others might. It was hard to think of Cor like that now, but she did know that he'd been far younger when he was on the front. "Gum and tea came around every day, but on days there were those cookies in the dessert ration..."

"You had your cigarettes saved up?" Iris asked, completely enraptured by the entire idea.

"I think I usually ended up with a quarter the squad's cookies."

"Do you still like them?" Iris asked, because Cor never seemed like the sort who 'liked' things, he seemed to tolerate many things, and when she sometimes tried to find things that made him happy or smile, it was usually... a blank.

"They stopped making them a while back," Cor answered, and then he shrugged. "Chocolate got more expensive to import and they were never very popular back in the City."

"Oh..." Iris frowned, that just seemed... sad and stupid. She knew chocolate was around in Lestallum, she had had some plenty of times, but it sounded like that for Cor that was different than those cookies. "But how do I tell how many cigarettes to spend...?"

"That's why we invented money," Cor answered. "But--"

"No one likes money because it's not real the way booze is. Complicated. So basically we're getting paid in 'stuff' instead of money now." Iris couldn't say she liked the idea, but it seemed like it was going to have to be the way things were for now. A lot of her life was like that now: not exactly what she wanted, but clearly what needed to happen.

"But for now," Cor continued. "We have training in twenty minutes, and pay to distribute."

Iris took her cue, and took the log sheet and the new packets out of the safe and then headed over to the training room where Cor set her to her stretches. Cor ordered the men into their various training groups as they arrived and Iris had them sign to receive their pay packets before locking away the remaining packets and joining the Crownsguard-Hunters in her own training regime.

She got a handle on the whole thing over the next months, and she was a bit startled how obvious and easy it was in some ways. Monica always wanted another meat serving or two for her cat, Ignis would trade almost anything for more coffee rations, Cor had no attachment to cigarettes or coffee or candy and would happily trade them away for more beer or tea. Iris's cigarette rations tended to work for anything she couldn't get with her pay, and her alcohol rations were carefully stored away only to be doled out to Gladdy in 'I owe ya one' portions that meant he pretty much always owed her whatever she wanted within reason. Prompto tried to keep Talcott from spending all of his salary on candy, but he wasn't always that much better about it.

They also managed to make certain that the EXINERIS lines to the south remained in good condition, and even though they had entered perpetual twilight it was... a bit settled. Most of Cleigne was safe to some extent, with bright lights that covered all the areas where people needed to be. The danger lurked on the road, the lands in between the safer areas in Cleigne. There never seemed to be intent, but the daemons didn't sleep any longer, and a single Iron Giant would destroy all but the most fortified of caravans. The roads between Meldacio and Lestallum were patrolled enough to keep them safe, but south down towards Ravatogh was nothing but terror. Despite constant suggestions otherwise, Cindy kept the garage at Hammerhead operational, and it was probably a good idea in the long run. There were rumors that Insomnia had come alive a bit and was filled with daemon activity. Keeping a closer eye on it did seem wise.

It made it hard for Iris to keep positive about where they were, and how they were doing, when the reports of another injury or a lost life would come in far too frequently no matter how often she headed out of the city to tend to the roads.

Everyone, Cor, Ignis, Gladio, Prompto, and Dave all assured her that this was the best they could do right now, only a few months into the dark. She hated it, it frustrated her endlessly, but every time she realized how little they were secure in Lestallum it made it a bit harder and easier to let the trouble go for a few more days.

After a long day of training, administrating, and a quick jaunt to deliver supplies to Meldacio, Iris just sort of wanted to curl up in bed and sleep, but she knew Gladdy was going to head out on another hunt soon so she needed to sort out some trail food.

"Hey, Monica!" She greeted the woman who was now largely in charge of the Commissary (Cid called it a PX the one time he'd been in), and Iris made her way through the aisles, sorting through her and Gladdy's pay to decide what to buy.

A lot of the frozen meats from Insomnia were months old now, heading towards the end of their shelf life, even after freezing, so there was a huge amount of that in 'buy one get one!' bins, so Iris picked up some gighee belly and mutton. They were going to have to start sorting out animal slaughtering too and Iris wasn't much looking forward to that. She wasn't squeamish, it just worried her that they were going to start killing animals before more babies showed up.

Apparently no one liked canned green beans so those were on sale too and she picked one up, along with some canned tomatoes before diving into the 'must haves' as far as Gladdy was concerned: caem carrots, leidan potatoes, and all the onions in the world. Iris grabbed some dried peas... dried chocobeans... oats...

"Throwing a party?" Cor asked beside her, voice amused as she piled in more and more food.

"Gladdy's heading off tomorrow so I'm making him some road food so he doesn't die of Cup Noodles overdose."

"I'm surprised he can even get Cup Noodles now."

"I swear half of his food tickets go to it," she said, glaring annoyingly at the missing dairy and vegetable chits that Iris's own packet had. "He's a baby about cheese and milk, and anything that's not a manly vegetable."

She almost gave a pointed glance to Cor's smaller basket only to find funguar, peas, and beets there in addition to some other greens. "Weren't you up in Meldacio a few hours ago?" He asked.

"Mmmhmmm," she answered, slightly annoyed. "I put up with it for the fact that he's pretty much got to do whatever I tell him. Pinkshrimp?!" She looked at the annoyingly present shrimp; they weren't super common in Lestallum a few months ago, but she knew some Nayvth guy had taken over the aquaculture and they were getting more and more fish available. She glowered at the mutton and gighee belly, trying to decide which one to live without, only for Cor to pick up one of the prepackaged servings and slide it into his basket.

"My treat."

Iris gave him a bright smile. "They're super good, I fell in love with them in Caem, want me to cook you dinner?"

"That might get in the way of me sitting at home drinking beer and listening to the radio," Cor answered with a smile that said he was joking.

"My apartment has a radio, too."

Cor seemed to consider for a few moments before finally shrugging. Iris answered with a whack on his shoulder before grabbing two eggs and heading to the counter to check out with Monica.

True to his mostly sarcastic word, Cor came over a few minutes later with a pair of beers. Iris was a bit of the way through her chili prep, and was making a decent amount of progress on toasting oats and nuts for the granola bars for Gladdy's crew.

"How much food are you making?" Cor asked, obviously disbelieving the amount of work Iris was doing. After Iris tilted her head he took a seat nearby at the small dining table.

"Well the chili and the granola bars are for Gladdy, I'll get that stewing and chilling after dinner... after that's done I'll get the shrimp shelled and freeze the shells and..." She shrugged. "I only cook a few days a week, and I like to send him off with some decent food."

"He could learn to cook something other than Cup Noodles."

"He _could_ ," Iris agreed. "But I'm not holding my breath. He's already trying to convince me to figure out how to make something 'just as good', and then he talks about how nothing can replace it..." When it came to food, her brother was entirely unreasonable, she gave a sigh. "Oh! Randolph finally got finished with dad’s sword," she said, feeling a little awkward when she said it. She imagined it was still a sore point for Cor even if he didn’t say anything about it.

"Did he?" Cor asked.

Iris went to retrieve it from her room, it was still just as huge, but a lot of the decorative stuff at the pommel and hilt had been too rotted out from the months of blood to be saved, the blade itself had been entirely reforged as well. In a lot of ways it wasn’t her dad’s sword any longer, just the same metal heated and remade, but it kept the same gold-blood hued steel it had always had. There was probably a metaphor there, but Iris didn’t like to think on it that much.

"He does work wonders," Cor said a moment later, taking the blade and examining it with an experienced eye. "I’m surprised you went for the broadsword."

"Well... it’s Gladdy’s, not mine."

The look on Cor’s face said he was thinking about arguing that point, so Iris waved a hand, heading him off before he started.

"I know I went and got it, but he’s the Shield, I’m not." That was one thing she could never change and never really thought it was worth thinking about. "Gladdy’s the King’s Shield, when Noct comes back Gladdy will be the one who goes to banish the dark with him, and that’s never going to be me, and that’s alright."

"I think you’re selling yourself a little short."

"Not really," Iris answered, she’d been thinking about it a lot, she and Gladdy had talked about it a lot, and they both knew that Gladdy had a heavy weight to bear. He’d even told her about the Tempering Grounds, and about how he had been tested by their ancestor Gilgamesh, and Iris knew that even if she could reach Gladdy’s level with the sword that wasn’t her path. She’d fight for Lucis and she’d even fight for Noct but Gladdy assured her that when their father talked about a People’s Shield there was no way it was anyone but Iris. "Dad’s sword isn’t for me..., but Gladdy said that his ring was for no one else."

It still rested neatly on the chain with her dog tags, and someday when she felt ready to wear it she would have it reforged to fit her smaller hands, but for now it rested against her heart and was all the reminder she needed that she was fighting for Lucis and Lestallum because it was in her blood.

Cor seemed satisfied with that answer, at least, and gave the sword a bit more of an eye and attention before finally passing it back and Iris set it back in Gladdy’s room so he would have it for tomorrow when he headed out.

"No doubt your father wished you to feel..." Cor didn’t seem to have the words.

"Stronger with something to protect," she finished for him. "Lestallum, all of these people, he put them in our hands and I can’t let them down." Iris felt her hand come to the rings at her throat and she held them for a moment, gathering her strength from that. There was so much to do, and she knew her father would have supported her through it, but she had to stand where her father had and not crumble.

A few long minutes of silence, and they finally returned to less weighty subjects, Iris's trip to Meldacio to deliver supplies and check in with how the Hunter outpost was holding up in the twilight-dark. Iris gave Cor a quick rundown of the things she'd faced on the way there, a smattering of daemons, but with little organization to make them truly dangerous. 

Most of her dinner prep work done, she settled in to actually cook something for herself and Cor: pinkshrimp in a garlic butter wine sauce on hand rolled noodles. Thankfully the noodles had been made last week, so she finished that in fairly short order and the two of them headed out to the patio of their rooftop to eat.

Whenever a community of the container-campers was finished on a roof, they made sure to include what amounted to a shared fire pit. They were something of a community beacon for the refugees, and Iris always marveled at how different it was from home. In Lucis she'd lived in a huge mansion, and she usually had the run of the place to herself, with Jared or Talcott around as family servants, but too stuck in station to bother 'Lady Iris'. Here people just came up and gave her a 'hello, Captain' without much thought.

Iris set the chili on and she and Cor slowly ate their way through the dinner.

"You know... I thought Prompto was exaggerating when he said you were a great cook."

"Hey!" Iris answered, feigning indignance.

"You're an amazing cook."

Iris allowed herself a brief moment to preen before she went back to twirling up a noodle on her fork. "Jared taught me most of the stuff I know, since he usually did the cooking back home." It still hurt to think about him, but Iris pushed through it as best she could. "And Ignis showed me a few tips for the camper stove before..."

She watched Cor and the man hung his head and gave a little nod.

"He's working so hard..." Iris said a moment later, voice soft. "I don't know how to help." She sparred with him some, helping him get back some of his fighting form, Iris knew that he was still relearning how to cook, and part of her wanted to offer to help but a lot of her didn't want to be a pest or a bother...

"He's returned to training, although I did have to twist his arm on that," Cor said. Iris knew that after three weeks of time focused solely on reconstruction, Cor had pretty much demanded Ignis return to training if he intended to fight again. "Men... mourn in their own time. It can't be rushed."

Iris nodded, and she felt her hand instinctively go to her throat. Mom and dad... Mom she'd had time to grieve, years, but dad was still fresh... "I worry I'll just spend the rest of my life mourning." They'd lost three civilians and a Hunter in the last week, and Iris _cared_ but she wasn't sure how to feel it properly.

"I'm the wrong person to ask," Cor said, looking down at his pasta and making a focused effort to twirl a few noodles up, collecting his thoughts. "Don't harden yourself to it... but don't get lost in it..."

Iris nodded, it sounded easy enough in its own way, but she knew it couldn't be nearly that easy in practice.

"Duude!" Iris's head shot up to see Prompto and Talcott had come over to their rooftop. "Why didn't I get the dinner invite?"

"Because _you_ didn't bring part of dinner," Iris shot back, and added a light whack to the back of Prompto's hand when he tried to touch the simmering chili.

"Lady Iris has a point," Talcott said, and then he took what looked to be two packs of foil and then set them carefully along the edges of the fire pit. "It's not like we brought extra for them, either."

"Major Buzzkill here," Prompto answered, but the two of them sat down at the fire as well, settling in. "I don't know, it's hard to share, it always seems like there's only juuuust enough."

"That's the point of rationing," Cor answered, taking another bite of pasta after, and chewing slowly. "You're lucky it doesn't feel like too little all the time."

Iris nodded. "They're doing a ton of work to make sure we have any food production, the stuff we brought from Insomnia... the canned and dry stuff will last a while longer, but most of the fresh-fresh stuff is gone, and the frozen is on the way out. I got some mutton for cheap, though, meat pies!"

Prompto pouted at her. Iris knew he loved meat pies, so she stuck her tongue out at him.

"I could... um... I have corn flakes? Gelatin? And canned oranges?"

Iris shook her head. "Is that what you spend all your chits on? At least you won't get scurvy."

"Hey!" Prompto sat up straight, indignant. "We're having birdbeast and potatoes for dinner."

"No wonder canned green beans were cheap," Iris answered. It was probably a good thing she fed Gladdy if this was how everyone else was eating.

Iris finally glanced over to Cor, who was obviously struggling to contain laughter, his finger resting above his lip even as his mouth curled in a smile. When she caught his gaze, she couldn't help but start laughing as well, which just caused Cor to actually break into a chuckle.

Prompto gave Cor a slightly annoyed look. "You're the one who got a cooked meal!"

In the end, Prompto and Talcott's 'birdbeast and potato' was sad and pathetic, and Iris took pity just enough to throw a half scoop of chili onto both of their potatoes, and absolutely shamelessly stole Prompto's pudding cup dessert in return.

Cor took in their dishes while Prompto loudly bemoaned how much of a jerk Iris was for stealing his pudding, and a good bit later, after he and Talcott had finished dinner and admitted the chili was pretty good - even a bit under-stewed - Cor returned with a spoon for Iris and then sat back with his second beer.

Order finally returned, and they went over some of the administrative and hunting details after that, and Iris wished them all a good night, brought in her chili, and went to start on the dishes only to realize they'd been done already, neatly drying on the rack beside the sink, so she decided to land face first in her mattress, barely kicking off her shoes, and sleep the sleep of the somewhat happy and well fed.

*

Even though EXINERIS and the Hunters had been able to keep the power flowing up and down Cleigne from Meldacio to Ravatogh, accidents still happened. Even after nearly a year of dark, old habits refused to die in the minds of some. Headlights weren’t _enough_ even before the dark had fallen, but a lot of people acted like they were. Only the bright city lights and the Oracle protections at the Havens was enough.

A good day was one where the injuries weren’t bad enough to leave the victim in danger of dying to the seeping Scourge in their bodies.

It had taken seven instances where there had been no hope of recovery without the intervention of an Oracle and they had to be left to die out in the wilds for Iris to firmly put her foot down. Cor had to admit that it was the right choice, but that didn't mean he had to like the consequences of that decision. 

The dark had given him an opportunity to remember what life had been like during the brief periods of peace that were interspersed between long periods of fighting. Deploying out into the dark for sometimes weeks at a time reminded him of what he disliked about war, but it made the return to the light and civilization all the sweeter.

If there was one thing he'd come to hate more than the need to deploy and sweep through a huge swath of Duscae or Leide to secure minerals or other resources, it was when Iris did the same.

Cor couldn't deny that she'd quickly learned every basic he could have hoped to teach her, and although true mastery would take years, he could hardly hold her youth against her. At sixteen he'd been well-established in the Crownsguard and a personal bodyguard of King Mors and Prince Regis, trusted to fight at the younger man's side on the front when matters called for it.

That didn't mean he had to like it when Iris was out without him, and he had to trust both in his strength as a teacher and hers as a pupil. It was just a semi-routine trip out to Hammerhead, check in with Prompto who stationed himself there for his hopeless damn crush on the mechanic who was either gay or married to her work... or both, and then a sweep through Formouth Garrison to look for more salvage.

Cor was staggered to realize how quickly he'd come to rely on Iris as a mix of commander, confidant, sounding board, and friend. Despite what some might think, Cor made friends easily enough, and kept confidants well enough, he just hadn't expected such a quick and easy friendship to form, or to worry so much when she was away.

A soft knock came on the door, and Cor called for his visitor to enter: Ignis.

"Marshal?"

"Come in," he said. "Chair's... about where it always is."

Ignis nodded, something tucked under one arm and the other stretched out just slightly as he made the short trip to Cor's desk, touched it for a moment, and then found the chair with a nudge of his foot and then his hand before he sat down carefully.

Cor was fairly certain it was ego that kept Ignis from using his cane more, but as long as he didn't get himself killed, Cor didn't think it was his business.

"Tomorrow's pay packets." Ignis offered up the folder, and Cor took that. "And... could I trouble you for an update on the various missions?"

"Sure." It wasn't unusual to share intelligence, and Cor happily worked his way through the active missions, Iris's to Hammerhead, Dave's recent work to keep the Emporium and the water purification nearby daemon free, and the other bits that were in motion.

"And... ah... Commodore Highwind?" Ignis prompted, trying to sound innocuous as he did so.

Cor smirked. "Had communication with her two days ago, her men have been looking into some of the Southern Gralean fortifications with no particularly negative outcomes. She should be back in Lestallum in a few days."

Ignis's relief was obvious, and Cor wasn't certain the two of them could be any more obvious. Ignis's distress when Aranea was gone had become particularly unsubtle in the last months.

"A few things for the docket, I'm afraid," Ignis said after Cor had finished, and he made his own listing of the items that needed dedicated hunter attention, dyes, salt, and a variety of other minerals that weren't able to be found in striking distance of Lestallum and environs.

Cor made his own notes, and went through his list of possible groups who might be able to handle the tasks.

"Also of note, Talcott and I will be heading to a few of the less popular Royal Tombs, largely in southern Duscae."

He arched an eyebrow, and then realized a moment later the gesture was lost on Ignis. "I'm... not sure that's a good idea."

"I realize my condition puts me at a disadvantage, but I am prepared to--"

"It's not that," Cor answered, cutting off the younger man. "You all but run the admin side of the city. I wouldn't be any happier back in Insomnia if one of the ministers swanned off to the front lines to punch a Niff."

"Well... I have a great deal to research that can only be done on site, conditions are unlikely to allow thorough photography... in short, it must be me who goes. By many notes it's a... vanity project." Ignis had clearly planned his argument, but that didn’t mean Cor was pleased by it at all.

"Searching for more information on the Plague of Stars and the various Kings from the Founders time," Cor clarified. "Not exactly vanity. I'm going to assign you some hunters. Southern Duscae will be accessible only by sea, the overland routes have been all but impassible since the collapse of the Hulldagh Tunnel, and scaling one of the arches would be challenging for anyone who's not well studied in climbing. If it _doesn’t_ prove fruitful, however, I will suggest you refrain from future excursions."

Ignis didn't look pleased, but he did nod. "I'll concede defeat." After another moment, Ignis brought out the bag that he'd not presented earlier. "Might I trouble you for an honest opinion, marshal?"

"Sure?"

A few moments of fumbling and the small container became obvious, soup. "I realize presentation will never be my strong suit, however I'm afraid I've tasted this far too much to even appreciate it or not. Prompto is available less and seems disinclined to criticize the food regardless of its quality, and Gladio lacks a great deal of... variety in his palate."

"You mean the part where he eats meat, and lots of it, and little else?" The constant complaint from Iris was old hat by now, as she was perpetually annoyed by Gladio's disappearing fruit and vegetable vouchers that mysteriously converted to meat and Cup Noodles at a poor rate.

"I did spend a great deal of time cooking for him," Ignis answered with a wry grin.

"Iris would probably have a better opinion," Cor answered, because he had to admit most of his ability to judge of food was if it tasted like shit or not. Judging variants of enjoyability happened quite rarely, although he was prepared to admit that Iris did have a knack for tuna casserole, something he'd sworn he would never eat again after the many times he was subjected to it on the front.

"Call it ego, I suppose," Ignis said. His face said much of the rest of the story. "There's something a bit too humbling about her witnessing my... attempt at normalcy."

"Fair." Cor pulled the container towards him, and then took the offered spoon before scrounging around for one of his tea mugs, checked that it was clean, and then put a cup or so of the soup, split pea by the looks of it, into the mug and then he checked the temperature - still warm - and took a quick bite. "Hmm... it's good."

Ignis waited, and Cor took another spoonful before stumbling upon a slightly less done carrot, and then a bit more wading found the culprit there. He wasn't much of a cook, but he knew a little. He might have been a humble kid, but he'd had a few invites to far too fancy parties as a result of his station in the Crownsguard.

"Dices on the vegetables are pretty uneven." That wasn't surprising in the least given that Ignis was a blind man with a knife and a prayer when it came to getting the food prepared. "So some of it's a bit underdone. Otherwise... good. I'd never say no to more gighee in something, though."

"Thank you for the Gladio commentary at the end..." Ignis gave a slight smile. "I should have noticed the dice."

"Probably," Cor answered. "Knife work in the field is nothing like the kitchen, though."

"Of that I am aware, but thank you. The issue of the dice hadn't been brought to my attention, and I find it unlikely it's a feature of this attempt alone," Ignis said, and he made a quick fumble to recover the soup.

"I’m surprised Magnus didn’t have any thoughts," Cor said, Ignis’s uncle lived with him, after all, and helped with many of his administrative duties. He was under the impression that Talcott did a lot more now, but that didn’t mean that Magnus was an invalid.

"He..." Ignis’s face said the rest, but he continued soon after: "He’s been unwell."

"I see," Cor answered, uncertain what he should say in response to that, Magnus wasn’t a great deal older than Cor, in his early sixties, but it was easy to imagine that a few months of deprivation in Insomnia along with the less active lifestyle contributed, but… it was still an unpleasant thought. "Is he likely to recover?"

"I’m afraid not," Ignis answered. "It has been good to have some more time with him, but... the most recent concern is that it might be the beginning of the Scourge."

Cor winced, the Scourge came for people indiscriminately, but it seemed to affect the frail and those who had fallen into despair the most acutely. "If there’s a concern..."

"Aranea has been looking in on him," Ignis assured him a few moments later. "She has been... a great help."

Cor had little he could say to that, and they moved away from that unfortunate conversational topic, as it seemed that Ignis was upset about it and Cor could hardly fix it. After a bit of conversation turned to the construction of the animal pens and the continued attempts to see the refugees from all over Lucis had at least a passable standard of living within the city. The container homes had proven fairly successful in a general sense, but few were fully converted into apartments with kitchen and bath, so public laundry resources and any areas with communal showers and bathrooms were in high demand. The fire pits served for cooking, but even refrigeration was scarce.

The conversion of a relatively modest working town into a city three times its original size was almost overwhelming, and Cor knew that Dave and some of the other hunters had far too much time wasted keeping the local peace rather than being able to spend the time securing outlying areas.

He left Ignis to his duties and returned to his own, and made an effort to see that the man’s tasks were prioritized so he could at least have one thing he didn’t need to worry about.

The days passed slowly, filled with training and planning, and he even made a visit to one of the machine shop to finally order a fold out dining table. He decided that was likely more hospitable whenever he next had someone over for the night and cooked her breakfast the next morning. That and he could admit that he was old enough that a comfortable chair and place to eat went a long way to keeping him happy. 

Of course, even after the thing arrived, he still found himself leaning against the benches around the communal fireplace more often than not, today he had a well grilled steak and potatoes that he was mostly finished, and he was enjoying the last of his beer. Cor was not looking forward to when the supply of pre-dark beer inevitably was exhausted and he would be forced to determine which of the various newer local microbrews were worth considering.

A clatter drew his attention to the right, where he saw Iris, standing at the head of the stairs to the roof, her bag sitting at her side. She looked exhausted, and after a few moments, she picked up her bag and made a lazy path towards the fire pit before giving Cor a tired wave.

"Go alright?" He asked. It had been _weeks_ and he was glad to see her.

"Yeah, swung by HQ to grab a shower, decided to come home when you weren't there."

Cor glanced at his watch. "I think my internal clock slid a little with no training the last few days."

She shrugged and shouldered her back. "Now to hope that Gladdy hasn't eaten everything in the house."

Cor doubted Iris's hope would be founded, but he watched her leave and spend only a few minutes in her apartment before returning with a look of irritation and sitting down a few feet from Cor.

"An entire lasagna, four home made cup noodles things, a dozen eggs, two steaks, a half pound of gighee belly, six mini pot pies... and the only damn food in the apartment is the luncheon meat that I brought back from the mission." Iris held up the aforementioned luncheon meat tin. "I've been eating this shit for two weeks."

Cor knew that feeling only too well, and after a moment he held out his hand and took the tin, Iris grumbling slightly and letting it go. He went into his apartment and took a quick glance through his pantry and refrigerator before pulling together all the fixings of a quick meal, it wasn't fine gourmet, but at least Iris could have pan fried luncheon meat rather than cold from a tin. After a quick moment of reflection he added a sunnyside egg onto the side, and then wilted some spinach and brought the whole mess to Iris with some toast.

"Food I don't have to cook..." Iris said, her voice happy... "With... a vegetable."

"Enjoy."

Cor watched as Iris happily plowed into the dinner, leaving yolk to drip all over everything and Cor was fairly certain most of the food disappeared in a matter of minutes.

"You should take the day off tomorrow," he suggested. "Beat the shit out of your brother and do some shopping."

"That sounds... wonderful."

The two of them spent a few minutes discussing Iris's trip out of the city, and after several minutes, Cor noticed that Iris had gotten quiet, and then a glance found that she'd fallen asleep, snoring softly against his shoulder.

Cor shook his head and chuckled, taking the plate away from her fingers and setting it to the side and moving his arm so that she wouldn't fall over. He didn't know how long they sat like that, but Gladio eventually came home, and after a strange look, did pick up Iris and take her to bed, allowing Cor to retreat to his own apartment and have the first decent sleep he'd had in ages.

.4.

After the transition to a more aggressive stance on hunting daemons, Iris found herself in an... odd position. It seemed that after she had taken out a particularly problematic Iron Giant near the Emporium she was gifted the ridiculous moniker of 'Daemon Slayer' which was rich considering how many Hunters did the same every day...

She said as much to Aranea while the two of them were out in the markets.

"You do something impressive, people notice," Aranea answered with a shrug. It was strange to see her in a more casual outfit in town now. Just after the dark it hadn’t been unusual to see her around town in her old Magitek suit, but now she just looked like anyone else on the street. "You have a problem with being the center of attention?"

"A little," she answered, honest.

"Well stop it," Aranea said. "I asked. Only seven hunters have a solo Iron Giant kill to their names, two are dead and one is Cor. You use that and you cement your authority, that sort of thing."

It was well and good to say ‘cement your authority’ but if anything it had been worse in the last few weeks since the kill. She knew how pissing contests happened and she had largely avoided them in the immediate wake of the dark, but for some reason people were somehow worse now, testing her, challenging her, and she put them down on the mat if that’s what it took but it was _weird_.

"Why are people testing me more then?"

"Men," Aranea answered. "You make them feel small and they want to prove they’re still relevant. You’ve noticed who _isn’t_ trying to challenge you, right?"

"Cor, Dave, the guys," she answered. There were others, but the thing she noticed was how little the way they treated her had changed. Dave seemed to have even more respect, and the few times he tried to cut her out to talk directly to Cor seemed to have dropped off to nothing.

"Same thing happened whenever I got new troops," Aranea said, and they walked up to a market stall and she prodded her way through a few packs of berries, shoving them towards Iris to judge their ripeness. "They want to prove they’re superior."

"But you’re their boss and why isn’t Ignis doing the shopping?" Iris asked, finally selecting some berries for Aranea and the woman passed over a chit and settled them into her bag.

"Because I’m a nice girlfriend... or just because it’s payday so he’s busy as hell and Magnus is still sick and Talcott is down with a cold," Aranea answered, and they headed over to the flour stall. "Pastry stuff?" She asked.

Iris pointed.

"And the more slipshod the hierarchy the more being able to beat the shit out of someone matters," Aranea continued. "In a real military they call it mutiny and kill you for it, in an outfit like the Hunters you just have to beat the shit out of them and hang them out of your airship by their thumbs long enough for them to get the point..."

"Ummm."

"That’s one option."

"I see," Iris answered. "I don’t think I like that one, but you’re saying that people are going to keep testing me because I’ve done something they couldn’t? That makes no sense."

Aranea didn’t answer for a few moments, since she was pointing for some pastry flour, but she did finally turn towards Iris and she saw that the woman was looking thoughtful, and it made her seem genuine. "It doesn’t, but I’m sure you could ask Cor, the same thing probably happened to him when he was younger. It will settle down, eventually, until you start dating, anyway."

"Dating?" Iris frowned, she hadn’t really considered it. Gladdy had attempted to convince her that because she’d just turned seventeen she really should think about it. Iris didn’t know what magically made seventeen more different as far as Gladdy was concerned, but she didn’t really want to worry about it.

Aranea’s eyes grew wide. "You do know what dating is, right?"

"I’m seventeen I’m not seven," Iris shot back, "and Gladdy is a huge fan of girls, so I’d have to hear about that regardless. I don’t know, I just have stuff to do."

"Daemons to slay?"

"Exactly!" 

The two of them went back to their shopping for a little while before Aranea continued: "I’m sure as hell not the type to tell a girl she needs a man in her life, but you can bet your ass people are getting laid. You don’t want to date, that’s fine, but don’t avoid it just because you think you should."

Iris didn’t know exactly why she was avoiding the prospect, like she’d told Aranea, she had shit to do, but she knew plenty of hunters had wives, husbands, kids, boyfriends, and girlfriends. Maybe there was a small part that still reminded her of expectations of a daughter of a Lord of Lucis... of course the expectations that her father had ended up leaving her were more along the lines of ‘protect hundreds of thousands of people’ and less ‘marry a nice boy’ so maybe that wasn’t a good argument either.

She could admit she was... well, she’d definitely had the occasional fantasy, usually involving Noct, but that just seemed weird anymore.

"And you’ve got to step on a few frogs before you find a guy worthy of kissing your boots," Aranea concluded.

"I don’t think that’s how the saying goes..." Iris said, but she understood the sentiment nonetheless. She’d dated back in Insomnia, it had been easier in high school, a few boys had asked her out, they'd gotten a burger or saw a movie and then she inevitably realized they were... boring or handsy or dumb or a gold digger. "I’ll think about it."

"No skin off my back," Aranea answered.

"Right, um thanks though. I don’t really have a lot of opportunity to... girl talk."

Girl talk achieved, they went back to their shopping and Iris got the funny stories rundown of Aranea’s latest trip over to Gralea. Sadly ‘funny’ was in short supply, but something death defying that didn’t end in tragedy usually passed for funny anymore. Gralea was pretty much a total loss anymore, they’d evacuated thousands of people over the months, many had joined Aranea’s army, although several had chosen to become civilians as well.

There was still the possibility that there were pockets of civilization that they hadn’t found yet, but the longer they went, the less likely it seemed. It seemed like it was more often that Aranea was trying to raid Gralea for supplies rather than for people, and Iris supposed that was good because they needed a hell of a lot to keep a city running with so many people packed together. Even a few shipping containers of tinned food brought enough to feed mouths and house families, each return trip was hope and a small amount of comfort, and that was all Iris could hope for sometimes.

She headed home after shopping, and relaxed on the couch after that, Gladdy was officially on notice that he was cooking for Iris today, and wasn’t allowed to cook noodles, so she decided to take it easy. It probably meant she was going to end up with gighee belly and eggs, but at least that was food she didn’t have to cook.

When her brother came home, she gave him a brief wave. "You’re allowed to set me up with a guy, but he better be cute and interesting."

Gladdy didn’t question the change of heart, but he did question her on her tastes, and apparently she was getting birdbeast in some sort of broth, so she managed her expectations a little bit on that front. "What’s cute and interesting for you, little sis?"

"Cute?" She considered. She wasn’t even certain what really attracted her to someone, her list of guys who she’d liked enough to chase after was one long, and even when she was younger she knew that that was never going to actually happen. "Sweet smile, nice eyes, kinda tallish..."

"Dark hair, blue eyes?"

She blew a raspberry at him. "I mean I do like blue eyes, but no, he doesn’t have to look like Noct." She wasn’t over Noct, not exactly, but she had always known that wasn’t happening, and he was most definitely gone for... no one knew how long. "And interesting just means we have stuff to talk about, I don’t care what."

"Don’t have to have interesting conversation to be good in bed," Gladdy answered.

"Ugh." She rolled over on her side, putting her face in the back of their couch. "Well I don’t want to just date some guy for sex, I’d like to meet someone nice, maybe long term. I don’t know. I’m just trying out dating. Aranea says guys are going to be asses once I start dating, so I might as well rip the bandage off."

Gladdy didn’t seem to like that explanation, but he did set her up on a date with Julian, one of the younger farmers who had emigrated from the Saxham area. He was a little younger than Gladdy, in his early twenties.

He had dark brown hair and a nice smile, and the two of them went for a walk around the market. It reminded her of her walk almost a year and a half ago with Noct, and the comparison could have soured it, but she was surprised it didn't.

What did sour it almost immediately was that Julian got really obviously bored when she stopped to check one of the tea stalls. Iris always liked to stop in to see if anyone was growing anything new, but as usual it was a bust. The real dealbreaker, however, was when he got huffy when she chatted with Chris the cloth guy about colors and stones he needed. He didn't say anything, of course, he just sort of set his jaw at an annoyed angle, and even after Iris nudged him towards saying a shop he liked he kept sulking.

Iris decided he was a butt and he shouldn't have suggested a walk around the market if he didn't want to shop. She was glad that he seemed to think the date was a bust, because it meant she didn't have to fend off an invitation home, she just got dropped at her stairwell without him even attempting a kiss.

When she arrived at her apartment, she opened the door and gave her brother a side eye. "If that's your idea of interesting, I'm not sure I want to meet boring." At least she'd got some shopping done.

Gladdy winced.

"He invited me to the market and then got bored after three shops," Iris continued, dropping her tin of tea and a few fabric bits on the table. "I even asked him where he wanted to go and he didn't have an idea! I suggested the fruit ice place and he didn't want to go. He was just a sulky butt."

Gladdy poked at her story a bit, and had to agree that nine shops was pretty reasonable for a market date when the shops were just tiny stalls. Iris also knew she hadn't spent much time ignoring Julian at anything but the fabric store.

"I guess you two didn't have much in common," Gladdy decided, although he admitted he'd never seen a 'sulky butt' side to Julian. "Try again?"

She grumbled, but agreed to allow it.

Two weeks later, she had a much better date with Neil, a vet who worked with most of the farm animals. He had bright blue eyes that Iris liked quite a bit, and curly red hair and freckles that made him look a lot younger than his late twenties.

They didn't have a lot in common, but at least he could talk about animals and food, and he listened to Iris when she talked about the hunters and everything going on out in the dark.

Iris wasn't entirely innocent, Gladdy was very interested in girls, so she'd gotten her fair share of unnecessary details about what a guy and a girl could get up to. Kissing wasn't new to her, but the scorching make outs that left her knees quivering were, and she had to give her brother credit for at least nudging her towards discovering that. It didn’t really seem to change anything straight off, not like Aranea had promised, but Iris decided she didn’t mind dating so much, all told.

*

Cor came into work for his shift to find Iris already pouring over the Lucian maps, scrawling a few notes with wax pencils over the glass that covered it. Her hair was dripping a bit, likely from a shower after she’d led the day’s morning training.

"Hard at work?" He asked.

"Sort of." She pointed at the southern portion of Lucis proper where a few small notes had been made. "Ignis has got everything together for the trip to South Duscae, I had Aranea airlift the yacht down to Caem, or well really the Haven right by it. I’ll be going with them. We’ll be using the trip to check on the desalination stuff as well."

Cor still didn’t like it, but he was hardpressed to say anything more on the topic. Ignis’s mind was made up, and patrols down through Lestallum and Cleigne to Caem and beyond to Galdin had to be made every few months to assure the roads stayed clear even if they were dangerous.

"A big fan of Ignis’s mission, I see," Iris said with a small smile.

"Obviously not," Cor answered. "My main concern is what happens to Lestallum if he’s injured or worse, and then there’s the matter of Magnus being sick." He didn’t want to think about having to be the person to take one of Regis’s most trusted servants and kick him out of the city like a stray dog. If he was deathly sick with the Scourge, however, there was no real choice.

"Yeah, the timing sucks, but I talked to Aranea apparently it’s just... sick. It’s not Scourge."

"Thank the Six for small favors."

Iris nodded. "So he’s just gonna keep on keeping on until he stops, but Ignis says it’s important that we go. These tombs are apparently really old, from a time about two hundred years post-Founder, during a time of extreme prosperity for the kingdom, just after the Clever."

Cor was hardly ignorant of Lucian history, but he wasn’t much of a connoisseur either.

"Apparently the Scourge was really light then, days were the longest they were in centuries, that sort of thing. It might give us a way to combat the dark or the Scourge." Iris smiled, and Cor felt a little flutter of hope, even if a practical part of him knew it was likely a fool’s hope.

"I’ll try not to let the Crownsguard burn down while you’re gone."

Iris made a frustrated grumble. "Sounds good, but I’m getting pretty sick of putting guys into the mat because they want to have a pissing match."

"It will get better," Cor assured her. He remembered when he’d just been a young man of twenty or so in the Crownsguard, and how much the young recruits had wanted to test him. "You’ve already put most of the idiots into the mat."

"The whole thing just seems barbaric!"

"It is, but it’s the way of things in paramilitary structures."

"Aranea said to just string people up by their thumbs on the side of a transport until they thought better of their stupidity."

Cor nodded. "Knew I liked her for a reason."

"You _hated_ her."

"And now we go out for drinks regularly," Cor answered. They were actually pretty decent friends now over a year into the dark. She would even admit that she had a thing or two to learn from him in the field, and Cor never lorded it over her. The idea of Ignis being out of town meant that he actually had to take stock of his chits. Aranea could _drink_.

With the confirmation that Ignis intended to head out meant that he and Iris had to go over the various issues along the length of the Cleigne territory as well. The two of them spent the next days going over the items that were in desperate need of tending.

Unfortunately, they were without the concentrated military presence that would allow her to clean out the road, and Cor made a note that they would need to look into another expedition just to assure that. Iris also wouldn’t be able to drop in at the Ravatogh outpost either, and time at anywhere but the Vaullerey would be quite limited.

"Dave’s been getting some pressure to give up Old Lestallum for lost," Iris said as they continued to plan the trip. "It is technically still Cleigne, but the EXINERIS lines had to be extended to reach. Holding both sides of the Wenneth River is of dubious utility, that sort of thing."

Cor felt his mouth tighten.

"I said I didn’t like it," Iris continued. "It’s probably our most difficult to hold area, wide open spaces, few existing walls, but it’s also the largest population center we still have outside of Lestallum. If we lost that land we’d have to shove those people somewhere, and we’re already overflowing."

He was gratified that her immediate thoughts matched his own, they couldn’t give up the _space_. Having to hold a wider territory was heavily straining their manpower resources, but the amount of space they had within Lestallum was at a premium. The danger of a line going down or a power outage was incalculable, but there was simply not enough space for everyone they needed to safeguard.

"That and Aranea said that a lot of the people who’ve been holed up in Tenebrae for the last year might be considering evacuating." She pulled out the world map, and Cor looked at that with her. "The Oracle protections have been holding around the palace and environs, but they can’t keep up with their food needs."

"Ignis informed me that Aranea has been dropping more than a few supplies there when she returns from Gralea. It’s humanitarian, of course, but..."

"A bit wasteful," Iris agreed. "Well not _wasteful_ , but I don’t think they have as much organization as we do, so the food seems to go wherever it can, not necessarily where it needs to go, and without a steady source of power their ability to produce food is limited. But that’s at least another fifty thousand people who we already have nowhere to put them, we can’t give up Old Lestallum. As it stands, I’ve had my eye on the Telpar Rest Area."

"There’s also a concern that the refugees from Tenebrae might not... be interested in fighting." Cor didn’t know for certain, but they were parked on one of the largest safe havens in the world and they were using it to sit on their asses as far as Cor could tell.

Iris frowned. "Do we know if they’ve been able to keep the Scourge out of their people?"

Cor shook his head. "They haven’t."

"So we’re going to have tens of thousands of more people and nowhere to put them and it’s going to strain our resources to feed them..."

Cor couldn’t help it, he snorted.

"It’s not funny, Cor."

"I know," he said. "I know, Iris. I’m just remembering... this is where we were twenty years ago when the Empire was swallowing territory whole. Too many people crammed in too small a space, taking up more resources than we had, and causing tensions to flare. If we’re lucky the native Lucians will keep the anger to talk, but if we have a crush of people from Tenebrae, people are going to be upset when their resources go to help them."

"So we need more space, more food, and more resources... I want a plan for taking Telpar and securing it," she ordered, and Cor was glad to hear it, even as he hated the work that was going to come of it. Months ago she would have hesitated, but now she just said ‘this is what’s needed, make it happen’. "Talk with Dave’s aunt, Kimya, and see if we can find out more about the Oracle protections, if they’re transportable, that sort of thing. If we’re giving up Tenebrae for lost, the least we can do is scrap it for parts."

"Of course," he answered.

"Can I ask you a sort of weird question?" Iris asked a moment later.

He shrugged. If she needed to know something, he would accept the question, weird or not.

"Why don’t you fight with me?"

"We spar all the time," he answered, confused.

"No, I mean, why don’t you try to... you know, prove that you’re stronger than me?"

It took a moment for Cor to truly understand what she was asking. He knew she had more than her share of men and women deciding that they wanted to test the woman who had felled an Iron Giant on her own, and although it came with a badass epithet, it was also loaded with expectation. He knew the process well. "Physically... I imagine I have an edge, and will for several years. We both know that, I don’t have any reason to prove it to myself or to you. As to why I followed you... Lucian law makes your brother the Captain of the Crownsguard, and his abdication passes the mantle on to you. I follow you now because you’re worthy of that position."

"I have no idea what I’m doing," she said, voice a bit small.

"Did I imagine you giving me orders on what to do with Telpar, Tenebrae, and the Auburnbrie clan?" He asked, trying to keep his voice light and wry, because it was bothering her, he could tell, but there was only so much he could do in response.

"But I don’t know what I’m _doing_ , I’m just making it up and hoping that it all works out and we can all make it work!" She said, her voice holding a slight panic, and Cor couldn’t help but feel empathy for her, and the fact that it had taken her over a year to voice that fear.

"Your father had no fucking clue what he was doing either," Cor said, he’d known Clarus, and he knew that was the truth. The man did what he could with what he had to work with, but there was no grand plan, no chessmaster strategy, simply a smart man making due with what he had. "I know I told you before that Regis, Clarus, and I had been fighting a war we knew we were losing, and yet we still keep on. We haven’t seen the sun in over ten months and we’re all still alive. Take pride in that."

She fell silent for several minutes, and Cor watched as she absently shuffled with the maps she had, pulled them and pushed them, worrying them, and he let her do what she had to to work off the energy she was feeling. "I mean Ignis is the one who takes care of--"

"Iris." He felt no shame in cutting her off.

"The People’s Shield," she said, finally, and Cor nodded. "Thanks for not letting me..."

"Of course." He gave a slight bow, because she deserved it. Whether she liked being called Captain or Lady Iris she was both, and even though they often worked as equals he still knew she was both of those things.

"Well, I need to pack and make sure we have the supplies for a month long trip, and you have a lot of work to do, so let’s get to it."

The next day or so was busy, but they eventually got everything packed, water filters, food, weaponry, extra fuel for the truck, and Cor joined Aranea at the Coernix station on the south side of Lestallum to wish the mission godspeed.

After the truck disappeared over the horizon he took one look at Aranea, already looking annoyed and a little misty, and he put a hand on her shoulder. "Let’s go get drunk."

"You’re my favorite."

"Somehow I doubt it," he answered. "But we can have drinks anyway."

.5.

Iris found herself glancing in the rearview mirror as she drove the van containing their small expedition of soldiers. It was hard to miss the way Aranea was looking at their rapidly retreating van as they headed away from Lestallum. Ignis was in the passenger seat beside her, and even though he was ignorant of the look his girlfriend was sending, he had his own pensive look as he stared into the distance at nothing.

It made her ache, just a little, to think about it. She didn’t wish Ignis or Aranea any unhappiness, far from it, but she was still smarting from the way her boy--- person had summarily dumped her because she was going out of town for a month. It wasn’t like she had been in love with Neil, they’d dated for three weeks and made out a bit, but it was still annoying to know that she was apparently not worth waiting a few weeks for.

She was sort of glad that she hadn’t had sex with him, mostly because she would be much more pissed off in the moment if she had, but at the same time she couldn’t deny that making out was fun. The contradiction was very annoying. Making out required a boy, but boys seemed to largely be stupid, and that had been a frequent discussion topic from Gladdy and Aranea, so she was pretty sure it was a lot closer to true than some bullshit that Gladdy liked to spout.

The truth was she hadn’t been that excited by the guy. He was cute enough, they had enough chemistry, but they only saw each other about twice a week and that was just to make out. They rarely talked about much. Eventually, she decided that if she was going to be stuck in the van with Ignis for several hours, she might as well satisfy her curiosity.

"How do you and Aranea deal with... time and distance?" She asked.

Ignis flushed slightly, even in the dark that was easy to see. "I don't think it's any one thing," he answered after a few moments. "We call when we're able, of course, and when power permits. We take advantage of the time we have settled in the same place to remain close. I trust her, and she me."

"Trust..." Iris pondered the idea.

"Ah, Aranea of course spends the majority of her time with Biggs and Wedge and their small armies, and she's quite friendly with the marshal. Combine that with my..." Ignis stumbled over a word, and then gestured to his left, the completely missing eye and the huge swath of scar tissue that covered his eye socket and temple. "People talk. I don't think the distance and time apart is for a jealous couple."

Iris nodded, before realizing Ignis couldn't see her and made a 'yeah' while she considered the idea. She hadn't _not_ trusted Neil, but she didn't think anything made her trust him either... he just was.

"Trouble with your veterinarian?" Ignis asked.

"We broke up," Iris answered, hopefully her voice not adding any undertones that weren't there. "He wasn't happy about the idea I might be gone for nearly a month, decided that wasn't worth it."

"Ah." Ignis gave an awkward cough to clear his throat and he turned away. It might have seemed like he was looking out the window if she knew he couldn't see. "By comparison, Aranea and I... had an intimate meal and..."

Ignis's entire neck was blushing.

"A going away kiss?" Iris asked, with all the feigned innocence she could muster.

"Precisely."

The two of them fell silent for a few minutes. "Sorry if I'm making you miss her."

"I will always miss her," Ignis answered. "It's nice to think on her while doing so."

"You two sound like you have it together."

Ignis didn't answer for a stretch. "It's hardly easy," he answered. "We do fight, although she respects my desire to do it, she's not fond of my spending time in the Royal Tombs. Aranea knows I'm one of the few people who might be able to make heads or tails of the information there, but that doesn't mean she must be pleased by the fact I intend to make a habit of it. We have also... discussed the possibility of children, something I'm loathe to consider during the dark or when she chooses to remain in active combat."

Iris didn't know what to say to that, so she smiled. "You'd make a great dad."

"So Aranea reminds me," he answered with a faint smile of his own. "And at thirty-two she is disinclined to wait until Dawn."

"Oh." For some reason, Iris had thought it would be Ignis who was pushing for kids, and Aranea who was reluctant, not the other way around. Still, it sounded like a mess. "Aren't you both away from Lestallum a lot, too?"

"And the work Aranea does is much too important to leave aside for a relatively selfish desire on both our parts," Ignis answered, and then he shrugged. "Perhaps a bit more candid than you wished, but it seemed wise to throw in a big brotherly thought that was likely less about pursuing a string of casual relationships."

"It's almost like you know Gladdy..." Iris said with a chuckle. "Yeah, I think I might have to date a Hunter maybe? This whole 'dating civilians' thing doesn't seem to work out very well."

"I have known him for well over a decade," Ignis answered. "And you may wish to speak to Aranea on the topic. She had more experience as a woman pursuing relationships with her military subordinates. You may be judged harshly, depending on the men."

"Ugh… Yeah, the guys were all about pissing contests because I downed that Iron Giant, and now there’s a little bit more pissing contests where they ask me out and get pissed when I refused. It’s gross."

Ignis lent a sympathetic ear to her complaints, allowing her the freedom to ramble about the unfairness even though he didn’t have anything to add and nothing to fix it. She sort of liked it. It was nice to get away from Gladdy’s incessant ‘fuck people, it’s fun!’ advice.

It took several tense hours, but they finally pulled into the Emporium where they'd be spending the next several hours resting, restocking, and checking on the locals. "Well, we're here. I'm going to go look at the water treatment facilities."

"I shall work on dinner," Ignis answered. "And perhaps call Aranea."

"You do that." Iris then leaned in and gave him a brief hug around the waist. "Thanks for the talk, Ignis."

"Of course. Always happy to help."

She spent the next hour down at the treatment plant with the workers and engineers to make certain that all of the parts were still in good shape and making a long list of things that would need to be machined in the next month or so to keep everything moving along.

When she finished up, she texted Gladdy to let him know she was safe at the Emporium, and gave Cor a quick rundown on the parts situation before she climbed into the camper with way too many boys and dozed sitting up against the couch.

*

Although Cor rarely made a habit of it, he had indulged Aranea’s grumpiness at missing Ignis and they had gotten royally smashed well before he would normally have gone into work. He wasn’t much of a fan of allowing the men large amounts of time off from training, so he handed off the duties to one of the senior hunters. It was ill-advised to try to stab things while tipsy. He’d done it when needed, of course, but he wasn’t intent on turning his blade on allies in such a state.

He did stay to observe the session, however. Even moderately intoxicated he could catch some of the worst mistakes, and a second or third set of eyes on the exercises could only help. Unfortunately, it meant he wandered the rows of hunters more indiscriminately than was his wont, and it also left him more inclined to pick up a wayward whisper of gossip.

"... market again."

Cor didn't take much note of the small group of Hunters gathered in the corner of the training area other than to catch the end of a sentence, which didn't attract his attention so much as filter into his mind as he glanced at one of the younger hunter’s attempts at a jab.

"Sure, but do you really want to try to go through her brother?"

"Her brother's the one who set her up with the guy!"

Although Cor would always protest he hated gossip, he knew it was unwise to stay completely adrift in the sea of social information that held up the roof of the Hunters, so he paid half attention after that.

"Cap just seems like she'd be a freak in the sack," another voice added, which caused Cor to cough for a brief moment, thinking he must have heard wrong. "All that pep and energy."

"Who dumps a good lay just because she'll be gone a few weeks?"

"An idiot."

Any doubt that Cor had misunderstood the rampaging gossip was quickly put to rest after that. He'd dealt with similar in the Crownsguard, 'locker room talk' that happened the second one of the women in the Crownsguard decided to hook up with another member. At _best_ the gossip remained a sly smile by the man and speculative ribbing by his fellows. The whole thing had been one of the reasons a relationship he'd had with a coworker back in his thirties had evaporated in a matter of weeks. 'You get better duties for fucking the marshal?'

Cor took a few steps over to the men and fixed them with his most stern and most disapproving gaze. A few of the men were younger, barely older than Iris, and they were immediately cowed by the look while a few of the older men needed Cor to fix them with a gaze and stare them down before he shook his head.

"She's your commander," he said, voice hard. He left the 'show some damn respect' unsaid.

"Yessir, sorrysir."

He knew that wouldn't put a stop to anything, but it might allow the gossip to... slow. Iris was out of town for weeks and he hardly wanted her to come home to some sort of rampaging rumor that she'd been fucking the entire mission squad.

The gossip squad dispersed, or at least changed topics, and Cor returned to circuiting the room, trying to ignore the idea of the men disrespecting Iris in that manner.

Cor had no idea when that had even happened. Iris hadn't mentioned dating anyone, and if Cor had had to guess he wouldn't have even begun to speculate she'd been seeing someone. If anything he would have thought the opposite, there'd been no unaccountable smiles or midday texts, nothing to indicate she was enamoured. It couldn't have been serious if it had ended over a deployment.

It made Cor wonder what Iris would even act like if she were in love. She'd have her silly smile she got sometimes, the soft one that made her look down with just a hint of a blush. She'd make stupid texts at all hours just to say hello and little giggles at whatever he sent back in return... she'd look beautiful...

Cor caught himself smiling, and then caught the rampaging trail of his thoughts that had placed 'Iris' and 'beautiful' in the same thought, and then the realization that they belonged together and that Iris hardly needed to be in love to look beautiful.

_Shit._

He had no idea when that had happened but he needed it to stop ASAP. She was young enough to be his daughter, she _was_ Clarus's daughter. There was no excuse for him to think of her in those terms.

It was inappropriate, it was reprehensible…

After a brief wave to the various trainees, Cor retreated to his office to try to quell the rampaging concern that had just overtaken him.

His phone chimed and he glanced down at it only to see it was from Iris.

_'Safe at the Emporium. Water treatment looks good but list of parts is long, sending preliminary report to Monica to place in machine shop queue. Nothing urgent... until something breaks, of course. Security slightly lax, want 2 more Hunters for overall patrols to ease 12-on-12-off schedule. Old Lestallum tomorrow.’_

Cor made a few notes, not allowing his panic to overtake good sense, he could at least focus on the work, until his phone chimed again and there was Iris, grinning up from his phone, having taken a selfie in front of the old Souvenir Emporium, now a small Hunter Depot. Outside the city, the lights were slightly softer, and he noticed how it washed out her skin less, but made the small scar on her chin even more noticeable, and he smiled down at her before he realized he was a disgusting old man, and slammed the phone face down on his desk and then returned to the task of making a notice to request volunteers for the posting at the Emporium before he had to just draft someone. Usually someone could be persuaded for slightly more rations, but it depended on the people.

After he printed the post and set it up in the training room his mind returned to the fact that he was a terrible human being. He didn't even know when it had happened! He just... he knew it wasn't new, that was what made it worse. He had no idea how long the seeds of an attraction had been sown in the back of his mind, and every time he started to ponder exactly that question he was starting to realize that he didn't want to know the answer, and maybe he couldn't even know.

The simple fact was that he'd been fond of Iris for years, and even thinking that made him sick to his stomach. Iris was _seventeen_ , a young girl, thirty years his junior... and Clarus would have fucking killed him for even looking at her like that. In Insomnia they had had distance, he barely knew her, even being friends with Clarus. Cor had been close with Clarus, but he had never made a point of being an Amicitia family friend. It helped keep a distance when it came to how he treated Gladio as a member of the Crownsguard, at least...

Since Insomnia... things had changed, everything had changed, and Cor would have liked to think he hadn't let his guard down simply because they had become friends, but it was clear he had. It was just so difficult to figure out how he'd not noticed the attraction.

He dated, for Six's sake... or at least he had women over, he hadn't bothered dating, largely thinking it was too much hassle at the time of his life he was in. The more he thought about it, however, the more he realized... his feelings had been growing for a while.

To confirm his suspicion, he pulled out his phone, scrolling passed the selfie and the report at the Emporium. He and Iris hardly texted much, usually only when she was away, but scrolling up he saw a picture of a merchant stall over in the market place.

_'OMG this guy just hid a bong when I walked near him. I'm the law or something.'_

_'Terror incarnate. He's wise to fear you.'_

Cor shook his head, scrolling back further.

 _'I miss hot cocoa :('_ ... He'd picked her up a small package not a day later and she'd hugged him and that had made it worth it.

_'Dave's talking my damn ear off.'_

_'It's too bad there's an emergency at the pens, you better check it out.'_

_':D!'_

The farther back he scrolled, the more he wondered why he hadn't noticed sooner. It wasn't even particularly subtle either. Iris's desires and wants became his preferences to fulfill. If she wanted something, he ended up finding he wanted to provide it, when she smiled he smiled back.

He found himself looking at one of the pictures, Cindy, Prompto, and Iris all jammed together at Hammerhead, the three of them waving for Iris's phone camera, and he shook his head, wondering how he hadn't noticed.

The realization made, all that remained was the bitterness and self-loathing. He wondered how much of his behavior could even be considered proper in any way. Iris was young, and no matter how much he tried to comfort himself he didn't think he'd been inappropriate, but it was just not appropriate for him to notice that she'd become a beautiful woman.

_Shit._

Cor went to the training room and worked his way through sword forms, losing himself in the comfort of the repetition, putting Iris and the entire trouble out of mind. It didn't help... He'd just need to... step back, to allow himself some distance, to not push his wants onto Iris, wants that he shouldn't even _have_.

He was not usually a man for drinking away his problems, but he was already woefully intoxicated, and it took few more drinks in the mid afternoon to send him far and away into the territory of drunk.

It took several hours of self-reflection, but his fairly drunk mind finally was able to convince him that as long as he kept his distance, it was fine. He would need to be careful... he didn't want to make Iris uncomfortable, he worried it would only take so long before she realized, but perhaps if he was appropriate they could maintain their friendship.

Although he already missed her -- Six how had he not noticed earlier? -- at least he had some time to center himself, to come to terms with his own idiocy, and allow himself to find a level that would let him be a friend to Iris, with no ulterior motives.

*

The trip along the length of Cleigne took several days. It used to be that the trip out of Lestallum would have been a matter of about two days at most, but with the dark it made little sense to invite fatigue and risk it all for a few more hours along the road. Still, Iris always tried to make the most of the trips, tried to recapture some of the fun she had felt when she first traveled to Caem with Gladdy and the guys, and she never shied away from a chance to take a picture or three to commemorate the occasion like Prompto always had.

Ignis was a bit less fond of having his picture taken, but he did assent to it often enough that her phone had plenty of photos of him, she and Talcott liked to stop at the Crow’s Nests and take pictures with Kenny, somehow the progress of deteriorating paint on the mascot was amusing rather than disheartening.

They spent most of a day at the old Fort Vaullerey -- the new supply center for Southern Cleigne -- and make certain the other end of the skytram was working. The staple of the Cleigne skyline, a tram from Lestallum to Vaullerey, was too small to do little more than transport a handful of personnel, but it did offer a small amount of safety for those willing to wait.

South of there it was mostly wilds, although Ravatogh did keep a small presence in the name of assuring various volcanic things that Iris didn’t quite understand could happen.

"Off into the wild black yonder," Iris said as they loaded up to leave Vaullerey. They’d make it to the Caem shore that day, and eventually overnighted at the Haven just to the west of the old lighthouse. The lighthouse itself was overrun by daemons now, but the haven nearby, although on low ground, did offer an outlet to the ocean and an old fishing pier now served as a makeshift marina for their Lucian navy of one.

When they woke, they broke camp and the hunter group broke into two. Half would be staying to process the salt water, making certain there was salt to send back to Lestallum; extracting from rocks was more dangerous, but the sea water filtering could take place even when people weren’t there to do it. They’d spend the next days hauling the bounty to Vaullerey.

Iris, Ignis, Talcott, and two hunters Iris knew well enough, Antoni and Reya, loaded up on the royal yacht. Antoni was originally from Altissia, but he’d been vacationing in Galdin with his boyfriend when the dark had hit and the two of them had followed Dave’s radio calls and wound up in Lestallum. Reya was a bit of a kid, only two years older than Iris, but she took no shit and Iris liked working with her. Although Iris was comfortable enough driving, even in perpetual night, she deferred to Antoni’s expertise when it came to navigating the blackened coast of Lucis. He used to own a fishing trawler.

"Lady Iris, look!" 

Iris went to where Talcott was pointing, looking out over the ocean and noting... light, light buried in the water itself. "Woah. What is that?" She wasn’t overly religious, despite the obvious nature of the gods in the world, but a small part of her wondered if the blanket of soft flicks of light in the water wasn’t some sort of gift from the Six to make the dark bearable.

"It’s called ‘bioluminescence’," Antoni said, dropping the last of their supplies in the hold and waving for Reya to unmoor them. "Which is a fancy way of saying living stuff that glows. The bottom of the sea is full of it, or was."

"This isn’t the bottom of the sea, though," Iris said, offering Ignis a hand and then helping him into one of the seats and giving him a life vest before handing out the rest of them to the others.

"Well, maybe they don’t teach it in those delightful Lucian schools of yours--"

"The removal of the top layer of the ocean ecosystem has caused the expansion of the lower levels," Ignis said a moment later. "Just like fish can live in the pure dark of a cave, so can they live at the bottom of the ocean. Fascinating."

"Specs here ruining my smarts," Antoni sighed, but there wasn’t any heat in it. "There’s stuff that lives off heat vents and the like, with no top feeders to pick them off, I guess they’re doing well."

"That’s... so cool," she said, and she pulled out her phone to take pictures of it. "I mean, it’s terrible, because there’s almost nothing left of those ‘top feeders’ except for what Nayvth has kept, but... the world keeps going on somehow," Iris said, and then she sent a picture to Gladdy, Prompto, Aranea, and Cor because it was just too cool not to share.

"Might cast a net when we’re in Duscae, see what gets trawled up," Antoni said, almost sounding happy at the prospect.

"Well, business first, and I don’t know how close the tombs are to the coast, but we’re going to be looking for where we can set down that might get us on the southern roads," Iris said.

"Aye aye, Captain," Antoni answered with his roguish grin.

Everyone settled in and they made their way east, the process of hugging the coast made easier by the lights of the deep sea shining up into the dark, and Iris kept her eyes on the lookout for anything that might be a place to set down.

It was slow going, and it took them hours to find anything that was safe to moor at, and they nearly breached their boat when they landed, but after another two hours of aimless wandering, and three major daemon scuffles, they managed to find the remains of an old Haven, and they set down for the night.

Ignis whipped them up a quick pan-fried luncheon meat, everyone was too tired for anything more elaborate. Afterward, Iris settled into her thin blanket, curling it up around her as best she could, trying to keep her body warm now that they weren’t moving.

"I wish we could see the stars," she said, not for the first time, and no one took it poorly or told her she was an idiot for wishing that.

"Based on or pace and time, I believe we may be at Hilldahoug," Ignis said. "Quite a mouthful, but if you can pull out a map, our best locations to find the tombs should be obvious on the map."

Three days of trial and error to find the first tomb, but once they did it was a flurry of activity. Reya set down their lanterns, hanging them neatly off of the statues of the old kings; Iris did a little bit of tomb desecrating, at least the outsides, to piton and climb her way up and set down a rope ladder to allow them at least the safety of height since they couldn’t count on Havens for protection while Ignis and Talcott were studying; Antoni set a quick fire atop the roof with her to keep them warm; and Ignis and Talcott went to work doing their scholarly reading.

It took only a day for Ignis to dismiss the tomb as having little of historical value, and then another five days to find the next tomb and the same process was repeated.

"Smoke?" Antoni offered when they were finally settled in again.

"I don’t smoke."

"I don’t either where Soren can catch me," the man answered with a grin.

Iris snorted at that, and then turned on her phone, taking a picture from the roof of the crypt dome down into the cavernous tomb itself, checked her messages - nothing urgent - and turned the phone back off.

"Iris!" She heard Talcott call from below, and Iris scrambled to look down into the tomb proper, looking for Talcott. "Get down here!"

She was down the ladder and inside the tomb in a matter of moments, ready to fight, only to realize that they were alone with themselves, no daemons. "What?"

"The Tomb of the Gifted," Talcott read. "A king of great piety and strength, he weathered the darkness and fathered twin sons." Iris was familiar with the way royal epitaphs were written, and she nodded in response. "Father of _Ardyn_ and Caem Lucis Caelum."

"Ardyn? Like the Chancellor?"

"Isn’t that weird?" Talcott said, and he sounded excited.

"It’s interesting," Ignis answered. "But that is no more telling than any other name, perhaps it was popular several hundred years ago, but that hardly means that only one man may have the name. We’ll continue to read and not pester our escorts with every little scrap of information."

Talcott looked a little hurt, but he bounced back quickly enough, and Iris settled in against the wall where she waited with Reya. It was nice to get away from Antoni’s smoking anyway. Several minutes passed while Talcott pressed paper to rocky surfaces and tried to rub charcoal to better highlight the words there.

"Hmmm, this says that the Gifted was succeeded by Caem, not Ardyn," Talcott said, reading over the paper he’d just pulled from the wall. "Isn’t that unusual?" He turned to Ignis.

"Very, Lucian succession is by strict primogeniture, both male and female heirs have equal right to the title and position of King due to their birth order," Ignis frowned, and considered for several long moments. "Perhaps Ardyn predeceased his father?"

"You’d think that would be mentioned, though," Talcott said, and he wandered along the walls, shoving light against them, trying to read. "Hrm, when did the Gifted die?"

"That would have been antemodernal," Ignis answered, which meant approximately nothing to Iris. "The conversion would be from the Founder Era dating system, I believe. Iris if you could, there should be an inscription... about here."

Iris went over and used her flashlight to try to find what Ignis was looking for. "211, there’s no F.E. or M.E. or anything."

"There wouldn’t be, it was taken as a given that the date would be in F.E.," Ignis answered. "So that would be approximately two thousand and one hundred years ago, give or take a century."

"This says Caem ascended to the throne in 218, seven years? That’s forever to not have a king."

"I can’t say I recall such a glaring succession gap in my studies of the history of Lucian kings," Ignis said a few moments later. "I suppose it’s possible, but--"

"What if Ardyn was the king for seven years but Caem wiped him out?"

"Active imagination serves us little, I’m afraid." Ignis sighed. "We will need a great deal more understanding of the history here before we can make further assumptions. It is an interesting topic however, my understanding is the reign of Caem is when the light was considered to be at its zenith. The Scourge was temporarily banished by the Founder, he received the Crystal, and then there was a slow waning of the light, the brief flare... I don’t know. That’s what we know of the history, anyway."

"So you’ve got seven years without a king, but the light at its peak?" Iris asked, sounding skeptical. "Talcott said that the Oracle being gone for just four years made the light get weaker, not stronger. I think there could be something to it."

Three days of study found no further information.

"Where’s Caem buried, anyway?" Iris asked.

"Southern Leide," Talcott answered without missing a beat. "We might want to check it out."

"Active imagination aside, it was on my list. I may have... not mentioned to the marshal my intent to continue on to Leide." Ignis looked away, abashed, and Iris reached out and gave him a quick hug.

"No worries, Ignis, I’ll protect you."

The man snorted, and reached out to press a hand to the top of her head, returning the hug.

Antoni constantly complained the second they got back into the boat, and it was only after Iris and Talcott commandeered long sticks to assure they weren’t going to run aground again that he agreed to pull into the Sound that pushed deep into the heart of southern Leide on the eastern side of Galdin.

That tomb was interesting, even to Iris. It was the Tomb of the Benevolent, and claimed Caem had ascended in F.E. 211. The walls of the tomb told the struggle of years against the Usurper, Ardyn, a _daemon_ made flesh.

"You can’t tell me that’s a coincidence," Talcott said after they continued to make rubbings and take pictures.

"I’ll admit, although circumstantial, this is... compelling. We have no access to the Royal Archives, however, and my understanding is the Lestallum historical society also has little of value. It will take us some time to determine anything else. This does seem to indicate a possibility that Ardyn Lucis Caelum was overtaken by daemons--"

" _But_ \--"

" _Or_ ," Ignis continued. "He was branded a daemon by his brother in the name of claiming the Lucian throne for himself. Stranger things could happen, and it is always possible that with only two potential heirs, the Crystal and the Six allowed the guardianship of the Crystal to pass through a less than Benevolent man..."

Iris couldn’t help but think that was absolutely crazy if it was true. It took several days to get back, burdened as they were by documents and rubbings and pictures, but Iris was more than happy to finally be home, even if they were no closer to truly understanding the dark or what had brought the light, at least she still had Lestallum and everything around her.

*

Cor reflected on the fact that it would have been far easier to control his feelings for Iris if she wasn’t in the habit of texting him constantly. Mostly she made reports, as she always did, but every few days he would receive a selfie from somewhere that reminded him that Iris was young and despite the horrors of the world still relatively carefree. All the more reason for him not to burden her...

When she finally returned, Cor felt he had his own feelings somewhat under control. A small part of him had almost expected to just... snap, somehow, despite his own control, but he was gratified to see that they largely were as they always were. It took only three bright smiles that he didn't return for her to start to probe and ask what was wrong, and he realized that distance might be harder than he thought...

He eventually gave up on the distance he'd hoped to maintain. In some ways he realized he was already in too deep. He was close to Iris, a friend and confidant, and it only took so much of him pulling up his usual walls before she started to suspect something was wrong.

Cor wondered if he was lying to himself when he said that made the most sense.

He and Gladio found themselves sitting around their rooftop fire, Gladio with a book, him cleaning his katana before pulling out an old biography he'd read too many times about a century passed Lucian general. The young man was antsy, Cor found it fairly easy to read on him.

"Something wrong?"

Gladio sighed, and Cor recognized the face of a man who had wanted to talk but hadn't been prepared to start without provocation. "Iris is out on a date."

Cor cursed himself, before giving his best small smile and a shrug. "Hadn't you been setting her up with guys?" He probably shouldn't have known that, but gossip was virulent.

"Sure but those were guys I already knew."

"And this guy?" Cor asked.

"Some merchant's kid. Asked her out when she was shopping yesterday..." Gladio had a look that said he didn't like this at all.

"The guy from the fabric shop?" Cor asked, realizing that if Iris was going to date someone from the markets that would have been his guess. "Chris, I think?" He was about twenty-five, attractive, and he and Iris always chatted when she was shopping.

"I think he's gay," Gladio answered. Cor hadn't noticed, but then again that was hardly something he tended to worry about. "Nah, Jamie, I think? His dad runs one of the tea shops."

Cor tried to remember or draw a face from the name, and came up blank, so he ended up shrugging. "Well, Iris can take care of herself," Cor assured Gladio.

Gladio gave him a mulish glower but he obviously knew Cor had a point. "I just don't like the idea of her giving up on dating before she's old enough to drink."

Again Cor was reminded that he was horrible for finding her attractive, but he couldn't help but empathize with Gladio's concern. "Clearly she's not, if she's out with some guy you didn't suggest."

Gladio then vented about his concern that Iris was too picky, or that she'd keep dating duds and eventually end up with someone terrible just because she couldn't find what she really wanted, and Cor nodded in all the right places. By the end, he actually found something of a peace with his own feelings, if only slightly.

He cared for Iris, and he knew he shouldn't, but it didn't keep him from hoping Iris found someone suitable. If anything, it made him even more eager to see her happy, to know that she was with someone she cared for...

In the end, Gladio was at the end of his tirade when Iris walked up the stairs to the roof. She was dressed in a dress that flirted with her upper thighs and left toned shoulders bare. It was definitely homemade, just a bit too unpolished to be from a store, and Cor hated himself for noticing exactly how stunning she looked with her short hair feathered just a touch and her trim legs being shown to excellent effect.

"How was it?" Gladio asked what was on Cor's mind.

Iris shrugged. "Enh." She didn't look happy. "Apparently taking me to dinner means I should have gone back to his place."

"I will castra--"

"It's fine," Iris answered with a sigh. "Told him off and that was the end of it."

Cor was at least glad she had the guts to do so, and he couldn't deny that a part of him wanted to join Gladio in the mission to see the kid deballed.

She headed into her apartment, presumably to shower or change, and Gladio stayed for only a few minutes before heading in after her. Cor continued to work through his book and his beer.

"Hey."

Cor glanced up to see Iris had changed into her usual Hunter wear, khaki pants and a shirt and flak vest. She had a cloth sack in her hands.

"Feeling better?" She asked.

"I feel like I should be asking you that," Cor answered. He didn't like the idea of Iris having to fend off a guy who--

"Wouldn't be the first time," Iris said with a sigh. "Happened a bit back in Insomnia too. Still, that's just one ass. You've been a grump since I got back."

"Have I?"

"Yes!" She answered. "Don't pretend nothing's bothering you."

"It's..." He looked over to her, her bright brown eyes and her lips still done up with lip stain, and he felt his chest constrict. "It's nothing to do with work or the dark, just... feeling a bit... uneven." That was the truth, and he supposed he could live with that explanation.

"Well, get it together, Cor," she gave him a bright smile, and he answered with one in return. "I'm counting on you to help me deal with everything that's going on. No quitting on me."

"I wouldn't dream of it."

"Good." Iris looked down at her hands and the cloth bag there before she handed it towards him. "Hopefully this works as a pick me up?"

It wouldn't have been the first gift she'd given him. She often gifted tea or beer or dinners, and she'd even made him a pillow for his crappy futon couch that had a fairly accurate Insomnian skyline. Still, he didn't know how to respond other than to take the sack and hold it in both hands. It wasn't particularly heavy, and seemed to have several unattached bits, leaving him with little clue as to what it could be.

After a moment, he set the bag on his lap and untied the ribbon, leaving the cloth to peel open and noticed that he had a lap full of cookies. He reached for one, noting the slightly brittle texture, and when he took a look he realized that the bottom was coated in chocolate.

He chuckled.

"It was stupid, but you seemed so down lately, I thought I'd make you..."

Cor didn't even remember how long it had been since he'd told her about the cookies in his rations, at least a year. "That's..."

"I had one, it's kinda... weird, but I think they taste alright. Cookies made with no eggs are sort of weird."

He looked down at the cookie in his hand again, and then brought it to his mouth before taking a quick bite and chewing slowly. It wasn't the same... or at least it didn't match a hazy memory, but the chocolate was just about right and the texture was close... and then he glanced over to Iris where she was looking at him with wide eyes that seemed to beg him to say it was alright, or passable.

"Perfect."

She made a face with a flat twist of her lips, saying she didn't believe him.

"It's hard to remember what they were like... but these are really good. You even put the chocolate on the right side."

"Hey, I did my research!" She answered, affronted. "It was actually easier because the bottom was flat and the top was a little round so..." She shrugged. "So they're ok?"

"They're great. I feel better already."

She gave him the look, knowing he was humoring her, but apparently his smile was earnest enough for her to believe him and after a moment she leaned in to hug him tight at his waist before she drew away.

"Thank you, Iris. That was kind of you."

"Well, you're pretty great," she answered, smile bright. "I didn't like that you were unhappy, no matter the reason."

"So you decided to fix it with cookies," he answered, chuckling. "A novel strategy."

"You said you liked them. I didn't know what else to make, and the markets had some darker chocolate, it just seemed right to try to make them." She bit her lip, and Cor could see the start of wetness at her eyes. "I've got the recipe written down and some more chocolate in the freezer, so if you're ever down..."

Cor nodded, his smile finally returning into something honest and genuine, even as he realized that he was brutally and painfully in love with Iris and every kindness from her elevated him far more than it should.

"I'm going to go make some tea," he said, and then he leaned in to nudge her with his shoulder. "Go get some sleep."

"Alright... um... really, you feel better?"

He felt worse in one way, but he couldn't deny that she'd been thoughtful and kind and far too sweet, and that had lightened his heart just a bit. "Yes. I promise."

She stood, and took a few steps, and Cor carefully gathered up the fabric of the gift bag and headed towards his apartment. It wasn't the lingering caffeine in his late night that kept him up through the night, however. The knowledge that he wasn't going to shake his affection for Iris any time soon was more than enough to gift him a sleepless night.


	3. Chapter 3

.6.

Iris often spent the first few days after she returned from a mission getting her feet back under her again. She liked to take a moment to just relax, make sure the necessities were restocked, yell at Gladdy for his lack of vegetable chits, sort through back pay, that sort of thing. She even slightly enjoyed mending clothes, darning socks - she hadn't even known how to darn a sock until after the dark, and spending time just wandering the city streets and reminding herself things were alright.

She found herself at the Plant, just slightly abusing her station to get a chance to wander through the halls and look at all the dozens upon dozens of rows of planted produce that had been jammed into every nook and cranny of the station.

"This is a restricted--" She turned to see who was talking, a young man dressed in loose clothes with messy black hair and hazel eyes. "Oh, apologies, Captain Amicitia."

"No problem," she answered. "I really shouldn't be here anyway."

"I won't tell if you don't." He gave her a faint smile. "Justin."

"Iris, which you obviously already knew."

He nodded, and Iris noticed that he had a nice smile when he looked down, just a little bashful... kinda cute. "Did you need something?"

"Nah," she shrugged, turning back to the planters. "I guess I just like to get settled after coming back from a deployment. Check in with Lestallum, that sort of thing. See what might hit the shelves in the next month or so."

"Come on." Justin tilted his head, and Iris followed after him. "Do you know much about the work we do here?"

"Sure," she answered. "I mean I come by every now and then, but Minister Scientia has a pretty detailed interest in the horticulture, aquaculture, and animal husbandry, and my brother works with the ranchers quite a bit when he's not hunting. You guys keep us alive just as much as the Hunters do."

"A flattering perspective, Captain."

"Just Iris is fine," she assured him. She got enough 'Captain' at work and on the field, she didn't need it when she was just hanging out with a guy.

"Well... I don't know if you know this, but right when the dark hit we were scrambling, trying to get cuttings and trimmings and seeds of pretty much everything we could." Iris nodded, she knew exactly what Justin was talking about, she'd been a part of those missions herself. "Things like most vegetables, and even a lot of fruits were pretty easy to transplant. You shove a potato in the ground and it just sort of naturally makes more potatoes."

"Which makes my brother happy," Iris answered with a little grin. "Me too, but I don't think Gladdy knows what a green vegetable is."

"His loss."

"I know, right?" She laughed, glad that Justin at least seemed to get the joys of a variety of fruits and vegetables. "But... I know Ignis said that a lot of plants were lost, or at best could be preserved until after the dark."

"Most weren't lost entirely, thankfully. At least not edible or medicinal plants. I hate to think about what the ecology will look like even after the dark lifts. They say it's ravaged in the wilds."

"Yeah," Iris answered. "It's... all the trees are dead, grass is gone... a lot of the soil just crumbles under your feet because the roots sort of all... let go."

"Well... don't worry about that," he said, and then he tilted his head and Iris followed him into one of the rooms she'd never been in before, a huge glass enclosure that looked out over the dark night and the crystals on the edge of the Disc, and she looked at... trees, flowering trees, with beautiful white blossoms.

"Oh... it's... what is it?"

"Duscae orange trees," Justin answered. "It took almost two years to get over the transplant shock, but it looks like we'll get a harvest this year."

"Oranges?" She walked up to the tree and looked at it, the flowers were gorgeous and she could almost smell the citrus on the thick white blossoms. "Six that's... amazing. How long?"

"We've had to hand fertilize them, but it's going to be worth it, in about two months... oranges back on the shelves." He sounded exceptionally proud of it, and Iris couldn't blame him.

"I'm lining up! That's so cool, I had no idea..."

"You're pretty excited for oranges."

"You knew it was impressive," she shot back. "We haven't had tree fruit in two years, like you said."

"Guilty," he answered with a slight smile, and again Iris was struck by his general... cuteness. "We're trying to help a few others through, but I'm not sure when they'll recover. I think oranges just scream... sun, you know?"

"Definitely. Nothing quite so sunny as an orange. Ignis used to bake this amazing orange cake, I'll need to get the recipe from him." Iris's mind was already working overtime trying to decide what would make the best accompaniment or a topping...

"I've always heard Minister Scientia is an amazing cook."

"Oh yeah," she answered. "He's... you know, still working on getting it back, but he's already great again. I'll catch up someday."

"Somehow I doubt you're as far behind as you're saying, Iris."

Iris glanced over to him, and she swallowed a bit at the way he said her name, just... warm. "Uh..." He was smiling slightly, and Iris watched his eyes flick down to her lips for a moment before they returned to her face. "Do you... maybe want to come over to my place? I'll cook something?"

His eyes widened slightly, and Iris didn't know if she'd done that whole 'asking out' thing right. She'd actually never done it, just two blind dates from Gladdy and the guy from the market, so she hoped that was--

"I'd love to," he answered, smile bright and genuine. "I'm off work in about four hours. I'll bring... wine?"

"Sounds good... um... I live on the roof of the Outlook Bar, the purplest crate there."

"I'll be there."

Justin let her get back to her wandering, and Iris had a brief moment of panic before she settled herself and then headed to the market to make sure she had food fixings. She wasn't certain about the wine... in truth there wasn't enough variety to do some whole 'pairings' thing that Ignis had tried to explain to her once, so she mostly ignored that and decided to make pesto gnocchi and call it a day. She texted Gladdy to inform him he was officially banned from the apartment for the evening and changed into a cuter dress.

Justin arrived just about when she expected, and he'd changed into a nice pair of khaki pants and a green shirt that brought out the green in his hazel eyes.

"Hello," he greeted her, and Iris felt herself flush just a bit. "My humble offering."

"M.E. 753 Alistor Reserve... is that a good year?"

"Nope," Justin answered with a little chuckle. "It was a dry year, even at the Slough, but drinkable pre-dark wine is a fairly rare commodity, and dinner smells wonderful."

"Gnocchi with spinach pesto and a salad."

Dinner was a little quiet, but companionable, and after a few minutes the two of them found ground to talk again and Iris definitely enjoyed it. She started on dishes after, sipping her way through the wine. She'd never really had wine before, and as promised it didn't seem like anything special.

The two of them crashed on the couch after and Iris put on some modern stuff - more Lucis than Lestallum - and the conversation continued.

"Iris... um..." Justin turned towards her, and she turned to face him. "Pretty sure I'm not reading this wrong, so... I just had a pretty long term relationship end. So I'm not really looking to hop back into something serious, but you're damn cute and I'd be lying if I said it wasn't flattering that you were interested."

Iris wasn't entirely certain what to say, so she nodded, smarting a bit, but she did think Justin was really cute. "So... not interested, or just not interested in something serious?"

"We can keep it light," he answered. "I just don't want to lead you on."

"That's... sweet," Iris said after a long moment. "Thanks... but 'cute', really?"

"Cute in that terrifying 'can probably kick my ass' way?" He suggested.

"Probably?"

He grinned, and after a moment he reached out to touch her hair. "Definitely?"

"Definitely." The kiss that followed was scorching, and Iris definitely felt like a quivering mess not long into it, with the two of them mapping out each other's bodies through layers of clothes, and Iris finally broke away when she realized she really wanted more but probably shouldn't so fast...

Another glass of wine for her, and some water for Justin, and she walked him to the stairs of her little neighborhood, absolutely ignoring Gladdy at the fire pit and giving Justin a chaste little farewell kiss. When he was most of the way down the stairs she went over to where her brother was sitting with Cor and she whacked him on the head.

"I don't creep outside the apartment when you tell me not to come home."

"Who was that?" Gladdy asked, completely missing the point, so she added another smack to the side of his head again.

"Justin, he works at the Plant in the fields and grow rooms."

"Isn't he dating that Hunter, Trisha?"

"Tiffany," Cor corrected. "And no, they broke up a few weeks ago."

"How do you even know that?" Iris asked, shocked by the fact that Cor, who always seemed so steady and completely unchatty seemed to always know the latest gossip.

"She took the month tour at the Emporium to get out of town," Cor answered, and then shrugged. "To hear her tell it, she dumped him."

Gladdy hissed slightly through his teeth. "Not a great long term choice, Sis..."

"Oh my god, Gladdy, he told me he just got out of a relationship. It's fine, we're just... having some fun. He's cute, and nice."

Her brother held up his hands in surrender, and Iris shoulder checked him a moment later before he slung an arm over her shoulder and hugged her. "Well, just remember, Cor will help me hide the body if he hurts you."

Iris gave her brother's ponytail a yank before curling up into his side. "Thanks, Doofus, and no more stalking my dates, please?"

"Nope."

She groaned, but realized she'd probably brought the whole thing on herself.

*

It took approximately three days for Cor to decide that being in a nice relationship suited Iris. The bright and cheerful personality that had always been her way seemed amplified, and Cor couldn’t help but appreciate her good cheer. She rarely talked about Justin, but her smiles and chuckles over texts reminded him of exactly how he figured Iris would behave in love.

In the end, she was happy, which was perhaps the most important part. A second important facet, perhaps truly more important, was that she wasn’t distracted from her duties, which meant that the two of them continued to work as a well-honed team.

"Ignis really wants to raid the Royal Archive," Iris said, and she’d even pulled out a map of Insomnia to make a point.

"Absolutely not." There was no way on Eos that Cor would think of allowing such a mission. "We’ve heard of nothing but daemons and darkness within Insomnia, and the rumors are that someone, likely the Chancellor, had the Crystal evacuated to Insomnia. It won’t be some quick dip in like it was last time.

"I know that, Cor, but isn’t it important to figure out what we’re up against? Enemy reconnaissance?"

"Picking your battles is also important, Iris," Cor answered.

He could tell Iris knew he was right, but she still clung to the hope that they could managed something. It would be a miracle if they could make it into Insomnia again. Prompto frequently sent recon photos and they never had anything good to show. There were MTs out in the streets, ronins, nagas, and worse, and Cor had little doubt that any but the most battle hardened among the hunters would be lucky to make it out alive, much less with successful kills and territory acquisition.

"There are more important things going on," he continued, and he pointedly took the map of Insomnia and rolled it up, placing it away and hopefully making his point. "What passes for a ruling council in Tenebrae has decided that evacuation makes the most sense for their long-term survival."

Iris sighed, and frowned down at the map that Cor pulled out next, Tenebrae, the Fenestala Manor and the surrounding area. "So we need an evacuation plan, and we’re also going to need to coordinate the retaking of Telpar. I talked to Dave, he knows the other hunters won’t like it, but he also knows it’s going to be required. EXINERIS is giving me hell for trying to run lines in the dark across the Crag, so we have that to contend with, generators that might be needed in the meantime... we have a lot of things that need to happen."

"Food is going to be strained," Iris said, she knew that, they couldn’t just take all these people and scatter them across Lucis to starve, but they were hardly in a position to just throw food at people who hadn’t brought anything with them. "Six, and I thought dad was a grump sometimes after work. We need to focus on getting the infirm to better medical treatment and food."

"Leaving us to carry the burden of the infirm with no manpower to increase our production."

Iris gave him the most impressive glower he thought he’d ever seen on her face. "People prepared to work, and their families," she decided after. "I don’t like it, but throwing more men at the farms and ranching might produce a small uptick in production. What we need is more _land_ , arable land."

"We have to find a place to put tens of thousands of more refugees, a way to feed those refugees, work for those refugees--"

"To be fair, Ignis is the one who has to deal with the logistics," Cor said, because while it was true that a lot of that fell to them, they did have some flexibility.

"But we’re the ones who have to figure out how to secure territory and find the land to fit food production on." Iris glowered at the map of Tenebrae, and Cor couldn’t help but reach out and put a hand on her shoulder. "How overstuffed are we at Tollhends now?"

The small Imperial fortification that hadn’t risen to the ranks of a true fort, just north of Vallerey was poorly secured, but... "They could probably take a few dozen more families, but we do have the trouble that most who live in Lestallum have no interest in leaving, and there is little by way of food production to be had down there."

"What about Aracheole?" She asked. Cor considered the fort across the Crag from Lestallum. "We haven’t built up there, right?"

"It’s technically Duscae," he answered. "Therefore no power lines."

"Shorter to power than going all the way to the Taelpar Rest Area, and better fortified," Iris offered. Cor couldn’t disagree with that, retaking Taelpar was going to be a nightmare, if they needed to push into fortifications in Duscae, Fort Aracheole was the obvious choice. "And it’s pretty close, all things considered," she continued. "I think a lot more people would be willing to relocate there than to Vallerey or Taelpar."

Unlike Vallerey and Tollhends, Aracheole had been exposed to the elements and daemons for over a year. There was also the matter of the lights, which would be impossible to get back up and running without power from Lestallum, and since EXINERIS only powered Cleigne there was no easy way to get power there. Of course, all of the same things could have been said for Taelpar, and there was the benefit that there would be fewer lines to run. Of course, actually convincing anyone to put the effort into securing either site would be a miracle.

Although most of the Hunters would follow Iris’s orders, that didn’t change the fact that the men were going to begrudge the military push just to secure space for more refugees.

"I’m going to call Prompto back from Hammerhead," Iris said a few minutes later. "He was with the guys when they hit Aracheole the first time and he’ll be invaluable when we go back. Aranea probably has at least some knowledge of the layout."

"I’ll order her on reconnaissance," Cor said, stepping away from the situation table and heading to the wall. "Never thought I’d be glad for how many forts the Niffs set up over the last years." The truth was he still hated it, every pockmark of Imperial occupation across Lucis made his heart ache with how terribly he had failed to preserve his country. No assurance that he couldn’t win the war on his own could take that away from him.

"I’m going to go talk to Ignis and order a little mini council meeting, we’ll need resources for the power lines, the grow lights, the hydroponics, the water supplies... what’s the word for it? SNAFU?"

He snorted. Situation Normal: All Fucked Up. "Thereabouts."

"You want in on the council meeting?" Cor shook his head in response, he hated the political crap and he was glad Iris took care of it so he didn’t have to. "Got it, I’ll take care of it. We’ll keep the Taelpar idea on the backburner, but a few other spots make more sense if we look into Aracheole first."

He grabbed the Duscae map out to take a look at.

"Talcott?" Iris said, talking into her phone. "Get me Holly, Ignis, Dave if he’s around..." She listed off more of the council members and walked out of the room while Cor continued his own planning.

He pulled out his own phone and called Aranea.

"Oooh, tall, dark, and immortal," Aranea answered on the fifth ring.

"Have you even gotten out of bed yet?" He asked, because he knew the woman far too well and she was definitely the ‘sleep in when you could’ sort.

"Wouldn’t have left if Ignis had been game," she answered with a sultry purr and Cor rolled his eyes. "But you didn’t call to express a prurient interest in my sex life, what’s up?"

"Need your eyes in the sky over Aracheole," he answered. “Rendezvous with Prompto out in Hammerhead, we’ll need his telescopic lenses. We’ll need everything, infrastructure damage, structural damage, hydrosourcing--"

"You sure know how to make a girl feel special," she answered, but he could hear her groan and no doubt roll out of bed where she had been laying. "I take it you’re looking at the Tenebrae refugees issue?"

He grunted an affirmative.

"I’ll get Biggs and Wedge on the western Gralea resource scraping, can’t promise anything, but we haven’t raided every town." He heard a few more shuffles, and what might have been an impact of knee on furniture. "Fuck, um, yeah, I’ll call you when I get the kid."

Cor wished her the best and then went back to his day. It had been hours of planning when he finally texted Iris: _’Any word on food prep?’_

Her answer was fairly quick: _'Meetings, can you see what you can find?’_

Apparently there was only so much administrative work Iris could carry in one day, so Cor made his way to the Plant in search of at least one of the members of the agricultural council. Ideally he’d scrounge up Brett Saxham, but Cor wasn’t picky.

"Um..." Cor turned to the voice, a young man with dark hair, a moment later he recognized him as Justin. He looked nervous. "Marshal was there... something I could do for you?"

"Looking for Brett," he answered, no nonsense. He didn’t feel like dealing with Justin, but he could at least make quick conversation with the man. "Looking for more space, finding out how to increase production, that sort of thing."

"Saxham’s out on the ridges right now, with Gladio actually," Justin answered. "But to answer the main questions..." He began a long ramble about topsoil and compost and really all Cor wanted was a number, but at least the guy seemed good at his job. Truth to tell he didn’t know much about him, Tiffany rarely mentioned him one way or the other, and he certainly didn’t make a point of talking to Iris about him, but he seemed like a decent enough guy, so Cor listened, made note of the things that seemed to answer his questions, and walked towards the small Plant conference area with him.

"We’re also going to need personnel to consider moving to one of the outposts," he continued. "Let me or Iris know if you think of anyone who might be interested."

The conference area of the plant used to be a beautiful glass enclosure that looked out over the entire sweep of the Disc, now it was more of a darkened mess, but at least the glow of the crystals within the Disc were still visible.

"I’ll do that, uh, Sir? Marshal?"

Cor nodded, and then he looked over to where Justin was looking oddly bashful. Cor frowned.

"I suppose I was just expecting the whole ‘if you hurt her’ thing..."

"I thought that went without saying," Cor answered, completely deadpan. "After she’s done with you, of course." He offered a bright smile, which to his understanding was one of the most terrifying things about him according to the recruits; it made them wonder what, exactly, could possibly be ready to turn into enough of a bloody mess to please the marshal.

"I’ll leave you to, uh, wait for Brett, I messaged him to say you were here."

Cor thanked the man and then went to stand by the window, using his phone to make note of the various information that he’d gotten from Justin, making notes to crosscheck it with Brett... _if_ Justin was correct, the ‘rotted soil’ of the dark might actually have one beneficial use as organic compost, but that relied pretty heavily on a lot of different factors and temperatures and things that Cor gave very little care to as a warrior.

The world had changed, Cor couldn’t help but feel it in every moment of every day. Years ago, he felt gratified to have problems he could stab his way out of, but now he yearned for that simplicity. A sword arm and men at his back could reclaim Aracheole, but couldn’t hold the territory, and a military transport could bring in people but couldn’t feed them.

Such was the way of things now. In some ways, Clarus and Regis had insulated him from it before. The political and logistical machinations of peace weren’t something he understood well, but given the deprivation of the dark he did at least have an understanding of rations and hard times.

Iris took to the details with aplomb, and honestly he expected nothing less of Clarus’s daughter. He was honored to stand by her side and gratified that she could complement his long-held weaknesses.

All told there were far worse things than a Captain he could serve without hesitation.

.7.

After three weeks of plotting and planning, Iris had to admit she was just about ready to yell something about stringing an extension cord across Taelpar Crag. She knew it wouldn’t work but she was absolutely sick of hearing everyone’s whining and complaining about how much work it was.

With the line finally branched from the Overpass, preliminary movement on the taking of Aracheole could begin.

"Preliminary reports from Commodore Highwind tell us we’re looking at the usual, imps, grenades, and flans. We have a confirmed sighting of at least one arachne and a naga is not out of the question given some observations on the nesting patterns. Giants seem to have taken up residence elsewhere," Iris began, addressing the assembled group of men and women in the training room. It wasn’t her first briefing, but it was the first with so many people, and a small part of her was incredibly nervous. "Commodore Highwind will be responsible for securing the rooftop areas along the center of the Fort. Immediate dangers to their position will be climbers and daemons who strike well at range."

Aranea was in the back, arms crossed over her chest, flanked by Biggs and Wedge. They’d already discussed much of the strategy, as her drop ships would be used to deliver over half of the strike forces.

"The emergency sector lockdown was originally designed to be restricted by laser, but hydraulic operation of bulkhead doors is available and will be used to restrict daemon movement between incursion groups. This will keep the groups individually from being overrun, but only the Commodore’s group will have clean access to reinforce a weakened line. Groups will be inserted at the bulkheads, and close the doors after securing the drop zone and beginning their sweep."

Iris continued to order the groups into place, Cor would be responsible for the main assault on the entryway door, and actually shutting off their on foot escape route and holding it. He was supposed to be the rock to the other groups’ hammers. Iris was entering on the North and was responsible for the largest open sector where they’d confirmed the arachne.

Dave and Gladdy were East, Prompto and Ignis West, and all they could do was hope for the best. Dave finished them off with a daemonology rundown to explain a few of the details of the monsters they would face, and then Iris headed off to rally her own group.

She was interrupted a few minutes in by Cor coming up beside her and asking for a moment, and she retreated to a private corner.

"Here," he said, holding out a coin-sized thing, and Iris took it, noting the iconography of the Hexatheon on both sides. Just a touch and she could instantly feel the magic in it. She’d seen some of the terrifyingly strong talismans and bangles that Noct and the guys had picked up throughout their journey and this one put them all to shame with the way it made her feel.

"I can’t take this," she said, she could _feel_ the resilience the thing brought and it terrified her. "What if you get hurt? You’re fighting an army, I’m fighting a spider."

"I already have a knack for not dying," he said, a slight smile on the corner of his lips. "You’re still working on it. Haste and fear are more cunning foes than any other you face on the field."

She looked down at the amulet, rolling it over in her hands once, looking at the sides and wondering about its history, it was beautiful... but she understood what Cor was saying without saying it. He might be facing down an army, but this was the first time she’d go on a major offensive without him, where he would be fighting at the same time. He didn’t want to worry about her and lose focus. A small part of her felt like it meant he didn’t have full confidence in her... but, then again, an amulet wouldn’t keep her from dying, it only meant it lessened Cor’s concern for her.

Iris took it and fumbled with the thin dagger straps her wrist guard. It rarely held a dagger, and it didn’t today, so instead she settled the straps to hold the pendant in place, pinned to the inside of her wrist. She could even tilt her arm just so to see it. "If you get yourself killed, I’ll never forgive you."

"Of course, Captain," he answered with a faint smile. "I’ll let you get back to the men."

An hour or so to make certain her men understood the ground and their objectives passed, and Iris ordered them loaded up on Wedge’s dropship. They one benefit of the short distance to travel overland meant that the coordination of the timing of the strike was fairly easy.

"Oh Captain, my Captain," Antoni greeted her with a grin, leaning against the wall of the dropship.

"You ready for this?"

"To follow you into the abyss? Always."

She spent some time on the communicators, back and forth with the others, before they lifted off and made the quick hop across the Crag and Wedge made his careful maneuvering as the rest of the way down. "Get us lit up as much as possible," Iris said, and then she led the charge out of the back of the ship, landing along the concrete walls with a solid oof and then throwing down a flare and hopping down next to it, bludgeoning a hole for the rest of her team to set down.

Prompto’s group was set down only a few dozen feet away, and the two groups formed up and prepared to clear a way. "Remember to be _thorough_ she shouted between the groups. You want it safe enough you’d have your mama over!"

At first it was just steady wave after wave, most of the daemons were of little smarts and just saw humans as food, happily scratching their way to their demise.

It felt like hours, but Iris imagined it was only an hour or so, just holding their line, bashing down the incursion of imps, bombs, and flans.

"Captain, Arachne!"

Iris looked, and just in time to charge into Desmond, barreling the man and knocking him out of the way of the tail spike just as it came down and then skittering back onto her own feet. "Gate down!" She ordered. "Now! We don’t want her flanking the others."

A few of the men scrambled to comply, and Iris pushed forward, turning her tonfas to allow her some distance as she gauged the creature.

"We’ve got your back, Captain," Antoni said, and he gestured to the men and they swarmed around, doing their best to keep the remaining fiends at bay while Iris tangled with the Arachne.

It was oddly difficult to keep her mind solely on her opponent, and she realized she knew exactly what Cor was talking about, the distraction of the idea that her men, and Cor, all the rest of them, her brother, were all out their fighting beside her and she couldn’t help them... She almost was too distracted, and nearly missed the next attempt to lash out by the creature.

 _Shit, pay attention._ She told herself, focusing back on her actual task, and then retreating her tonfas back, she needed the mobility to block and parry.

The spearing from the legs came quickly, one after another, and Iris darted between them, keeping her feet under her as she attempted to dance around it and the spider matched her step for step. The thing skittered forward and Iris met it, letting it get close enough to block it firmly and then jabbing up into its abdomen and sending it reeling for a moment.

A clang came from behind her and she had to scream to her mind to trust her colleagues, even if the world was crumbling around her she had one job: this Arachne. _Don’t rush, focus_.

She went back and forth with it, trading taps and blows, watching its movements and reacting. It was so different from an Giant, agile and fast, and Iris found herself match blow for blow. It made its mistake by leaning in just a bit too far when Iris had her feet under her, and she punched out, letting the wood swing and land hard against the side of its head before bringing the other one up to bash it back, pinning the head between the sticks and forcing it to the ground before delivering a firm steel-toed kick right to the throat with a sickening crunch that she felt it in her spine.

Iris gave it another shove once it was down, and she heard the shatter of its vertebrae.

When she glanced up she saw the carnage around her, a few of her men were down, maybe dead, and she winced at that, but she found Antoni with his back to the wall, fending off a naga with a spear.

"Shit." She went scrambling, and a few moments later she was on the thing’s back, one tonfa over its throat while she head-locked the thing tight with her other arm against the weapon, choking it as best she was able. "Put it down," she yelled, and the man didn’t need any more instruction, using its struggle to breathe against it and he took the spear up through the belly and into the brain through the throat.

Iris winced again at the sickening noises and she released the thing as it puffed into Scourge-dust and she covered her mouth to keep from inhaling too much.

"Check the wounded," she ordered. "Rally up, rally up."

She spun her hand in the air the right gesture, knowing it would be lost in the gloom. When they assembled she counted her men: twelve up, four on the ground, none missing.

"Alright, Sir?" Antoni checked with her, and Iris nodded, eyes scanning the edges of the gloom, waiting.

One of the men had taken a deep gash to the thigh, not deep enough to puncture the artery, but it was worrisome. "Tag him." Antoni took one of the red beacons and slapped it on the man, pressing the activator. They waited, and a sling came down from the airship above, the men got the wounded settled and then heading upward. One of the men wasn’t getting up again, pulse already gone, and Iris wordlessly grabbed the tag and removed it. The other two were just tired, scratched and bloodied to the point where the body was ready to give out, a watered down potion between the two was all they could spare, and the two got to their knees, struggling for breath.

"Let’s move." The fifteen of them continued to sweep, but most of the resistance and daemons were gone. None of them were intelligent enough to hide or use stealth beyond the nature of their bodies blending into the area. It took hours before Iris felt comfortable raising the barricades again, and the entire strike crew rallied on the rooftops by Aranea.

Gladdy was fine without a scratch on him, Dave only slightly worse for wear, Prompto had had a close shave with a grenade but had prevailed in the end, Ignis was scuffed up yet mostly fine, and Cor was nursing a bruised or cracked rib. They’d lost nine.

She spent a few quiet minutes with Cor and Dave after, the three of them divvying the task of notifying the families of the deceased from Prompto and Ignis’s squad group. Iris assigned several of her men to the sweep duty and then boarded the transport back to Lestallum to take care of that. Antoni asked her to give Soren the message that yes, really, he was fine, just like he said he was.

Maeler’s wife cried, and Iris sat with her for an hour, offering what she could. She knew that dying for a good cause or among comrades was no comfort, that a dog tag was no solace, and that assurances that her needs would be taken care of could not bring her husband back; Lazern’s wife took one look at Iris at the door, held out her hand, took the tag, and balled her fist around it. She squeezed it so hard that Iris was worried her hand would bleed and after a few moments to collect herself, she asked Iris to leave before closing the door in her face.

She saved Soren for last, happy news, and he gave her some coffee and a hug before sending her on her way. Iris climbed atop the old Coernix Station roof, overlooking the Fort, watching as light after light slowly began to come on from generators and flashlights... when she woke from where she’d fallen asleep, crying, she saw the string of lights had grown to encompass the entire perimeter.

A quick shower didn’t help her feel human, or clean, but it helped a little with the grunge, and she eventually ended up at HQ, Cor looking just as ragged as she did. He gave her a nod, and a firm squeeze on the shoulder. "Justin volunteered to help with the Aracheole setup, why don’t you head out on the next transport with him?"

"Thanks..." she whispered, voice tight.

She found him outside, ordering the loading of one of the truck beds, and when she came up to him she kissed him and kissed him and cried and he didn’t understand and it didn’t make anything better, but it was the only thing she could do that even made an inch of sense right then.

*

The next two weeks were spent coordinating the efforts to get Aracheole up and running, Cor largely continued his work from the Lestallum side while Iris had taken up temporary administrative command of Aracheole. Already people were jokingly referring to the Fort as ‘the suburbs’ due to the relative proximity, now that the lines were strung there was even talk of trying to light the path well enough to provide safe travel without escort. A few had even suggested that there might be more room out there, or that it would keep the refugees away if the natives moved. Cor was happy enough to let the rumors thrive. Having people willingly head out to ‘the suburbs’ might mean they could afford the pile of refugees about to come in.

Iris was a mess, at least for a few days. Cor knew the pain only too well, Lazern was the first man Iris had ever personally lost in combat, injuries happened, and he knew that she’d lost some to wounds later, but he was the first man to die on her ‘watch’. His widow’s reaction, no matter how understandable, also had Iris smarting, feeling as though Bess blamed her personally. Cor knew that no assurances would dull that feeling, only time to come to terms with it.

He received his occasional customary pictures. The supply crates that had been strewn around near the fort and inside of it were hauled into enough order to begin to form city streets within the massive fort. The interior of the main building was slowly being converted into a greenhouse of sorts, grow lights everywhere, beds for planting constructed... it was nowhere near as good as real land, that Brett Saxham assured him, but it was the only thing they could manage in the dark. Soil was still pouring in from the areas around Ravatogh, south of Saxham, all over, and the beds would hopefully bring even more food to the area.

Cor had his lunch with Ignis and Prompto at Surgate’s, trying to assure the young men that the losses in the field were not on their heads. Ignis was in a poor mood to hear it, Magnus had succumb to his illness not three weeks earlier, and apparently Aranea was down with some manner of flu that had Ignis twitchy and concerned over his girlfriend’s health. They were still able to cultivate herbal remedies and some antibiotics, but although the knowledge of modern medicine remained, the ability to replicate it remained scarce.

Ignis had had to have his damn left eye enucleated a month or so back with barely any painkillers, much less sedation, and that was a horror that Cor didn’t wish on his own worst enemies.

"How’s Iris handling it?" Prompto asked, prodding his curry while Ignis slowly worked through his bread and soup, deftly dunking it and eating soup before transitioning to a spoon.

"About as well as to be expected," Cor answered. He knew the boys were her friends, but Cor didn’t like the idea of betraying the relative fragility of her state at the moment. It felt disrespectful to her.

"It’s so weird to think of her as this Captain sort," Prompto said, and Cor knew exactly what he meant. "I mean I’ve seen her in action before and after the dark, but to see her up in front of everyone and just... owning it? That was awesome."

"She has come a long way," Ignis agreed. "I can’t say I knew Lord Clarus well, he didn’t encourage familiarity among his subordinates, but she’s taken to it far better than I think Gladio might have."

Cor nodded. He knew Ignis couldn’t see, but he wasn’t certain he needed to to sense Cor’s agreement.

"And, marshal, when the evacuation of Tenebrae is joined, I would like to go. We cannot raid the Royal Archives, but there has been enough intermarriage between the Fleuret and Caelum lines that we may be able to find some manner of history."

"That I can agree to," Cor said, because that was far more reasonable than attempting to invade Insomnia on the off chance they could salvage intelligence about someone who might have been related to the Chancellor, or not.

He spent the post-lunch with Ignis working through the combat pay and the new survivor benefits that would need to be handled, and then the early evening handling the task of assurance that the soil and compost... crap from the south arrived on time.

After another week and a half or so of Iris out at Aracheole, she returned looking slightly refreshed and much less haggard than when he’d left her. "Thinking of moving to the suburbs?" He asked, half joking, when Iris came in and sat at the desk.

"You’re not getting rid of my purple apartment that easy, Cor," Iris answered, sighing and stretching in her chair. "Nah, I don’t think so. I mean it’s nice, but I need to be flexible, able to deploy, and the airships are here."

Cor was a bit relieved at that. "Was Justin thinking of taking an assignment out there?"

"Nah, just helping set up. Was nice to have a little holiday, even if it was filled with patrols, making sure the lines got secured, and that sort of thing."

She didn’t seem like she'd had a holiday, but Cor didn’t really know how to judge that, he supposed. 

"You’re acting like we’re getting married," she said, laughing as she did and she even went so far as to flick a pen across the desk, which he caught on the table. "It’s just some fun. I mean I do like him, but... we’ll see where it goes."

In only three days, Cor was decidedly glad that ‘it was just some fun’, because he came into work early to find that Hunter gossip was out in full force. Tiffany, recently returned from her stint at the Emporium, was aggressively informing anyone who listened that she’d 'gotten her man back', and it was only a strong word from him that curtailed her spewing forth more vitriol over Iris's audacity to have attempted to 'steal' Justin in the first place.

Cor hated gossip and he was having some particularly non-flattering thoughts about Tiffany and Justin while he was at it. Ultimately, he decided it was Justin's loss to tie himself to a woman who would rather be an ass than a reasonable human, but it wasn't his choice. Iris, of course, arrived without her usual chipper smile and Cor had to fight the urge to offer a hug in the hopes it might return her cheer. It had been impossible not to notice that the last few weeks had shown a remarkable upswing in Iris's already sunny disposition. Having a nice boyfriend clearly suited her, and Cor couldn't help but be frustrated on her behalf that her chosen boyfriend was an idiotic ass with no taste. He was pretty sure he wasn't even biased on the topic... much.

"Want to talk about it?" He asked, when they were back in their office and Iris had barely said three words beyond 'hello' after two hours of drills.

"How do you even know?!" She asked, irritated, borderline fuming, actually.

"... Gossip," he answered, and he watched Iris's face look even more frustrated and annoyed after that.

She set her head down on their mutual desk. "Well, I got dumped."

Cor struggled for an answer that wasn't 'so I heard' so he went for a sympathetic hum instead.

"Apparently Tiffany came back from the Emporium and 'came to her senses' or whatever, so now they're back together."

"His loss," Cor assured her.

Iris sat up after that. "Why do people do that?"

Cor frowned. "You're going to have to be more specific."

"Break up and get back together in a few weeks. It's not like anything got fixed or..."

She sighed, frustrated, and Cor didn't know how to comfort her, so he settled for the truth... or at least a part of it. Cor suspected that Tiffany was more interested in being a dog in the manger than actually dating Justin again, as she seemed to put a great deal of emphasis on denying Iris rather than caring for Justin, but he hardly wanted to pour salt in the fresh wound so he avoided that interpretation.

"Well, if I were being charitable... Sometimes in relationships things go unsaid, little annoyances become large ones and eventually bubble over into a breakup or a fight. Tempers flare, things are said... and then if the emotion remains sometimes a productive conversation can come from it."

Iris glanced over at him, frowning. "That sounds... volatile."

"It is, but it seems the preferred method for the particularly meek and the particularly aggressive." Cor didn't understand it, but he'd certainly been with the occasional woman who thought picking a fight was the way to address a relationship concern... he couldn't deny the allure of a hard makeup fuck against a wall, but that was usually the hallmark of a relationship destined to explode gloriously.

"... I liked him," she whispered, and Cor felt his chest constrict painfully at the hurt there, not anything so terrible as heartbreak, he hoped, but it was clear she meant what she said.

"Well, it sounds like he's an idiot, so no great loss there."

Iris laughed. "Thanks, Cor. Last night Gladdy was all 'I told you so' and... blah."

"Well he's an ass too," Cor assured her. "You're young, you have plenty of time to figure out what you want out of a boyfriend." He felt like a bit of an ass, but he hardly felt he was taking advantage. She wanted to talk, it would have been worse to leave her to flounder alone.

"Thanks."

"Of course." Her mood picked up a bit after that, and Cor was very thankful for her resilience. Six weeks was a fairly modest relationship length, but he knew Iris had been happy, so it was only natural for her to mourn the loss.

Her mood was noticeable for days, but Cor did his best to give her space and she bounced back relatively quickly. A few days later he was wrapping up for the day.

Cor's phone chimed and he looked down: ' _Halp! Need drunk._ ' Aranea...

' _You're 33, learn how to text._ ' No response came for a few moments so he sighed checked his watch and added: ' _Adamantoise, forty-five minutes._ '

' _:-D_ '

He was at the promised Adamantoise Bar at the appointed hour and Aranea was already there knocking back... water.

"I thought you needed drunk," he said, gesturing towards Heather for his usual beer.

"I need drunk, but I can't have drunk."

He gave her a very impressive glower. "I could be home with my feet up right now."

"I'm pregnant."

Cor looked at her, surprised. He'd know Aranea and Ignis had been considering a child, but he was fairly certain it had still been in the consideration phase. "Well it's not mine."

She answered by flicking a straw wrapper at him and glowing back. "Ignis and I just agreed to wait and then..." She flailed a hand.

"This sounds like a conversation to have with Ignis, not your drunk buddy," Cor answered, reasonably. They were friends, and they had a good relationship, but Cor wasn't going to be able to help her deal with whatever was going on in her head.

"What if he thinks I did it on purpose?" She asked, the crux of the issue becoming obvious to Cor after that. "I'm on him for kids for a year and then as soon as I agree to wait another year... oops?"

Cor sighed and pinched the bridge on his nose. "Accidents do happen, especially depending on... well condoms are damn expensive right now."

They were a luxury good by most estimation, and although Cor kept some around even his salary would have been strained if he was more regularly having sex.

"We don't use condoms."

"... I think I figured out your problem."

She gave him a glare. "Diaphragm."

He made a face that hopefully conveyed: 'I'm a guy, I don't know how that works'. He knew what one was, but he hadn't been in a committed relationship in years so he used condoms exclusively.

"Six percent," she said, which Cor assumed was the failure rate.

"Congratulations, you're a statistic," Cor answered.

"Don't harass the pregnant lady," Aranea said, and then she took a very aggressive drink of water. "Ugh. I'm excited but..."

"Ignis isn't an idiot," Cor said, finally. "I'm sure he knew the chances just as much as you did. Have a damn conversation like a mature human being." She gave him one last glower. "And congratulations."

"Thanks."

They spent a few more minutes back and forth where Aranea expressed her tentative excitement and promised Cor the 'honor' of babysitting, which he promptly told her where to shove.

After that, she seemed to settle in to the idea that a conversation would need to happen, and Aranea took a deep breath and handed over quite a few alcohol chits. "Get really drunk for me."

"I'll do my best," he said, watching her leave. He made a note to make certain Ignis wasn't an ass about the whole thing. He doubted he would be, but one never knew.

He hadn't actually intended to get drunk, but he did make quick work of three beers. It was actually a pretty annoying reminder that he had been some time since he last bothered to try to meet someone and have a nice evening.

What did Aranea always say: 'blonde, brunette, or redhead?'

Cor rarely humored the question, but today he glanced at the bar and made note of the women there. A blonde he recognized from the Plant, Debbie, was in the middle of a drink. She was built, solid and busty and Cor was aware that she was quite enthusiastic with whoever she went home with. A few men were glancing her way, but Cor scanned down the bar and noted there was a small congregation gathered around a slim, dark-haired woman in a flattering black dress whose back dipped dangerously low, enough to very obviously show off the curve at the small of her back with toned shoulders and well defined muscles along her spine, very fit, and the other men around her obviously noted that as well.

Cor took a moment to appreciate the view, looking at her shoulders and the neat up-do of the short hair, and the trim arms, and the shorter legs that were shown off by tall heels... before his mind told him exactly who the woman looked like, at least from the back.

 _Shit._ Even looking at women at a bar seemed fraught and entirely colored by his affection for Iris. Of course, the traitorous part of his mind kept insisting there was nothing wrong with looking, which meant he caught the exact moment the woman turned just enough to give Cor a look at her profile, her narrow chin and her cute nose with a tiny upturn. The woman didn't look like Iris, it _was_ Iris, out for the evening and dressed to kill.

The Six were not merciful, it seemed, and Cor decided that it was a firm and painful reminder that it would be best if he didn't dabble in romance while his feelings for Iris remained that complicated.

He resolved to finish his drink and head home before he made a mistake that would be very hard to fix. Cor tried not to look, but after a few more sips he glance over only to note that Iris seemed... closed off, one arm over her body, and Cor frowned, watching her for another moment before he realized that Iris was the center of attention for several and not quite prepared to handle that. He watched her shoulders tense, and he recognized her instinctive assessing and reacting... it was almost humorous to realize she was sizing up the bar like a pack of daemons, only for her to glance around for options and she caught Cor's eyes.

For a moment he thought about pretending he hadn't seen her, but her eyes were filled with a plea for help as soon as she recognized him. He cursed his poor luck yet again and set down his drink before heading to the bar, imposing himself at Iris's front for a moment and he watched her posture relax.

"Work calls," he offered to the gathered patrons, and then he tilted his head towards the high top and Iris scurried away in a matter of an instant.

"Thanks," she said, almost as soon as they were a few steps away. "Probably bit off more than I could chew."

Cor snorted. She came to a bar dressed in that damn gorgeous dress, showing off a beautiful body, and of course she'd drawn attention. "Aranea always tells me she likes to start at a table, assess the field before she strikes."

"She's dating Ignis..."

"Doesn't mean she doesn't know how to conduct a manhunt," Cor answered with a wry chuckle. "Have a seat, take a minute."

Iris settled into the chair across from him, and then looked down at his beer for a moment. Cor took a seat and was actually gratified to note that despite the daring back of the dress, the front was far more modest, which meant he didn't feel like a lech just for looking at her.

She sighed.

"Not your usual haunt," Cor noted.

"I just wanted to get out, have a beer... flirt?" She sounded like she was uncertain of the last item on her list, and Cor wondered if she might be pushing herself too hard to avoid thinking of Justin. "Mostly I went out so Gladdy'd stop bugging me."

Cor shook his head. "You should have just smacked him."

"Probably." She shrugged. "I did want to get out, it just mostly lets me avoid him continually asking me if I'm alright. I am."

"But are you sure?" Cor asked, joke in his voice, and Iris gave him an unimpressed look in response, which caused him to chuckle and she answered with her own small laugh. "Beer?"

"I don't know much about beer, so... why not?"

"That I can do." He tapped the table a few times, a gesture she knew well - 'sit tight' - and headed off to the bar to order a pair of beer flights from Heather. When he returned he relaxed into the stool. "I've got to warn you, most of what is available is... mediocre at best."

Iris just seemed to take it in for a moment. "It's not like I'd really know."

"For most, alcohol is high on the list of... necessary luxuries," Cor answered.

"Man does not live by bread alone," Iris answered, something he was fairly certain he'd heard her say before, but it was rare that he felt she took the adage to heart. "It is nice, even though the dark's made things difficult, it really does feel like things are starting to settle a bit, things are... normal?"

"Much more than it used to be," Cor agreed. He had noticed how much it felt like he lived in a real city, not a refugee ghetto, and as much as people sometimes panicked or behaved in an uncivilized manner, there was still the common, everyday things that had become more commonplace.

It wasn't just Ignis and Aranea who were welcoming children into the world. It was hard to make that decision while the world seemed balanced on the edge of a knife, but Cor couldn't help but note that things did seem just a bit more even than they had even a year ago.

"I like it," Iris said. "It means when I come back home after a long deployment I feel like everything's... good."

"I know the feeling. Except the beer."

"Why do you drink it if it's terrible?" She asked with a chuckle, which of course meant Heather arrived just when she said that, sliding the pair of flights onto the table in front of them.

"Something wrong with his head," Heather answered.

Cor gave the waitress a shake of the head and a chuckle, but he passed over chits and an extra candy ration.

"Candy?" Iris asked after Heather had left.

"Her son is a huge fan of taffy," Cor answered, and he made a point of coming to the Adamantoise when she was on. Heather wouldn’t take his charity, but she would take his tips at the end of a night of drinking. "Now, are you prepared to enjoy the best Lestallum has to offer?"

Iris reached for the beer glass farthest to the right, a porter and very much not one Cor enjoyed. She took a large gulp and quickly winced, barely swallowed it, and then set the mug down, looking at it like it had betrayed her.

The resulting reaction almost caused Cor to laugh and nearly spit out his own sip.

It was only made worse - or perhaps more funny - when he watched Iris start to scrape her tongue against her teeth to get the remaining flavor out.

"Not a fan of porters, I take it?"

"You drink that?!"

"Not usually," Cor answered, and as though to prove it he set the beer back down on the flight board. "But you said you didn't know much about beer, so... porters, dark and hoppy. That's what makes the bitter flavor. Pre-dark there were hundreds of different types of hops, now we're mostly down to a pretty basic breed and dandelions."

"Dandelions?" Iris asked, putting the beer back and looking at the next one.

Cor watched her take a far less aggressive stance with that one, giving it a sniff first, and then comparing it to the black tar that was Phoenix Porter. "Yup. Apparently they get into some of the crops regardless, so the farmers decided to embrace it. Dandelion makes good tea and an adequate hops replacement."

They shared a moment where Iris continued to assess the beer.

"That's... Midgardsoma," he hated the name, but he supposed everyone was allowed to have their own stupid naming schemes. "It's a lot sweeter, more malt."

Iris took a cautious sip, and Cor could tell she still didn't particularly care for it, but at least didn't find it hideous. "Midgardsoma?" She snorted.

"Most of the beer that's available now that's not old Lucian or Lestallum holdovers is usually a microbrew from the locals. The guy with the spicy skewers by the market makes that brew."

"I'm almost sad it's not curry..." Iris said, but she took another sip, obviously deciding that it was worth a repeat.

"I heard we might be seeing some oranges soon?"

Iris nodded, and Cor caught a slightly complicated turn of her lips and a quick glanced down before she recovered. He kicked himself, he didn’t know a great deal about the personal aspect of the relationship but he knew Iris and Justin had bonded over oranges.

"I imagine if Athir gets his hands on orange peels he might try his hand at a white beer. It's hardly 'curry' but it uses some of the spices."

"I had no idea you were... I mean I knew you liked beer, but..." Iris didn't quite know how to ask, but it was clear she was unused to the idea that Cor would actually know something more about the topic than 'this is beer'.

Cor smiled. "I actually used to brew back in Insomnia when I had the time. Not much, but I wasn't above subjecting my subordinates to my experimentation."

That caused Iris to laugh, hard. "I... I'm just..." She snorted. "I bet some new guy thought you'd... oh man."

Cor knew exactly what Iris was trying to say, and it caused him to quirk his own lips, remembering exactly the image Iris had conjured for herself. "Please, Iris, no one would dare tell Cor the Immortal his beer was terrible. They would just sweat profusely and then run away."

"Did that happen?"

He nodded, and that only made Iris laugh harder.

"That poor guy..."

"Dustin. I give him crap for it to this day." Cor shook his head. "Of course now he just gives me crap for making shit beer."

The two of them reminisced, or at least Cor did and Iris seemed absolutely fascinated by his love affair with beer. They sampled their way through the other three beers before Iris very firmly told him he should go back to brewing so that she could try something that wasn't terrible.

Cor countered by telling her to get off his beer lawn, and then made the potentially terrible decision to introduce Iris to the wonders of vodka cocktails - particularly a strawberry vodka cocktail - which Iris decided was wonderful.

"Never mind, you can keep beer."

She then looked at him with a smile that seemed an odd mix of drunk, sleepy, and sultry, and that was about the moment that Cor realized he had probably made a poor life choice somewhere in the last hour or so. "Let's get you home, Captain."

Iris seemed to think 'home' meant 'put head down on table' so Cor closed out his tab with Heather and then offered Iris an arm which lead to a fairly drunk stagger on high heels before Iris decided, even drunk, that high heels were a terrible idea and she peeled them off. It meant their progress through the city was slow, with Iris shuffling along to avoid stomping on something like a glass, and Cor valiantly fighting down the urge to carry her to avoid a mishap.

They made it home, at least, with Cor keeping an eye on her as she made slow progress up the stairs before he gave a firm knock on Iris's apartment door, finding Gladio was still up.

"She could do with some water," Cor said. He probably should have realized that putting a few beers and a vodka cocktail into a 5'4" tall girl who probably didn't have much experience with alcohol wasn't a great idea.

Gladio took a few moments to maneuver Iris towards her bed.

"And lay off on Justin," Cor added.

It seemed that hit a nerve, and Gladio sighed and ran his fingers through his hair. "I just want her to be happy..."

"We all do," Cor answered. "Just... let her have some space."

Gladio nodded. "You're right. Thanks for looking out for her."

A moment later, Cor's phone buzzed, and he sighed, pulling it out to see that he had a text from Aranea: _'Happeh!'_. Cor snorted, thinking that was probably a play on Ignis's accent.

"Have a good evening, Gladio." Cor turned towards his apartment and took a few steps there.

"You too."

Cor shook his head and texted back: _'Congrats again'_.

He found his way home and took a brief shower before he headed to bed. He had to admit that it had been wonderful to spend some time with Iris, even if it had done little to uncomplicate his feelings for her. He hoped she'd had a good time at least, it seemed like she had, and the warm - if slightly hung over - smile she gave him the next morning told him it was definitely worth it.

*

After a night of drinking, Iris didn't think her alcohol rations were in any great danger of being run through, but she definitely had a new found appreciation for vodka cocktails and anything that made a hangover less bad. She and Cor generally split the day with one of them arriving about four hours earlier than the other at what usually amounted to five in the morning, which meant Iris had a few hours to contain her hangover and drink a lot of water and tea before Cor arrived and they started training with the assembled Hunters.

"Good morning?" He asked, with an amused tone in his voice. He obviously knew she was hung over, and Iris gave him a slightly annoyed glare.

"Almost afternoon," she answered. "I had fun last night though."

The clarity of morning had also made her realize that she really didn't need to be pushing herself to date, or not, or go out, or not. She'd obviously headed out to get away from Gladdy's well-meaning fretting, but it just didn't make sense to throw herself at guys 'just because'.

Thinking about Justin still stung a little bit, but she was starting to think that had been a pretty decent way to have a relationship. Meet a guy, say 'hey, I like you' and see where it goes. She probably wasn't going to meet the guy of her dreams over getting drinks shoved in her face at a bar.

So, it meant Iris decided to just go with the flow, that sounded like a good plan.

"Oh!" Iris glanced over at Cor, grinning. "I think I finally beat you to some gossip!"

Cor snorted, but made a gestured that said 'by all means' and waited.

"Aranea's pregnant!"

She watched as Cor seemed... not surprised at all, and then he put a hand over his mouth to cover a slight grin.

"Damn it!" Iris glared at him. "I was so exited, too." Ignis had called Gladio to give him the news late last night - surprised and happy - and she and Gladio had had another drink and that probably had contributed to the hangover as well.

"Sorry, Aranea told me yesterday at the bar," Cor answered. "You're going to have to have Gladio come up with something gossip worthy if you want to get one over on me."

Iris pouted. She knew it was silly and immature, but she still had no idea how Cor, who was so staid and serious and grumpy, somehow managed to always get the best gossip first. "Well, I'm psyched... I'm going to sew _so many baby clothes_ , and Ignis is researching how to make the best baby food."

"You're pretty into this," Cor noted, with an amused little grin.

"Well... yeah. I mean Prompto's not going to have kids... ever, and Gladdy is a big ol' slut, so... I get to be an aunt!"

"I'll let Aranea pass you the honor of babysitting she tried to foist on me," Cor answered with a little grin. Iris got the impression he didn't mind the idea of babysitting, but he also wasn't particularly excited by it.

"Don't like kids?" Iris asked. She really didn't know, Cor had never mentioned one way or the other.

Cor shrugged. "They're best in small doses."

Iris probably agreed with that. "That's why it'll be awesome to be an uncle, right?"

The two of them ended up going back and forth on kids, and Iris was pretty amused by the fact that Cor seemed most excited to teach Ignis and Aranea's kid how to fight. Iris was just ready to clothe the kid and everything. It was strange to sort of think about it... kids with all that was going on in the dark. She didn't think she was ready to consider it - even if she had a guy who was interested - but it was pretty exciting to think about in the abstract.

She finally decided to stop gossiping - some - and the two of them headed off for their rounds of the city. They went most days, checking the shantytown that had sprung up along the Northern Overpass and the blockades near the end of the Overpass that marked the primary way-point on the trip to Meldacio. They circled up around the edge of the meteor, checking all of the fences and lights, electrical connections that kept the pens for the animals secure.

After a nudge from Gladdy, they made short work of a nearby colony of imps who had been harassing the edges of the birdbeast coops, and then headed to the south to check on the road towards the Emporium before ending at the Overlook - a similarly built up shantytown that was largely made up of campers appropriated from the many rest areas around Lucis, strung together with their own small communal area like the rooftop neighborhoods.

An older woman Iris didn't know seemed to be the babysitter of the day, with almost a dozen children between the ages of about one to seven gathered nearby. One of the kids, a boy towards the older end of the spectrum, noticed Cor and came up to him with a wave and a crisp salute. He had dark auburn hair and sort of grey eyes, with a happy and open face.

"Marshal!"

"James," Cor answered. "How are you doing? Not giving your mom trouble, right?"

"Nosir!" James answered, saluting again, and Iris couldn't help but smile at the earnestness of the boy. A few of the other older children had congregated, and Iris was getting the impression that Cor wasn't an unusual sight to them, and a small chorus of 'marshal's came from the pack.

Cor made certain that the children were aware that they were in the presence of _Captain_ Amicitia, and the chorus of 'marshal's was soon overrun by 'captain's instead.

"You didn't need to do that," she laughed as they headed back to the Hunter office. It was sweet, though, and it was easy to see why Cor was fond of kids in small doses.

He shrugged.

"You know James?"

"Heather's son, the waitress at the Adamantoise."

"The taffy fiend," Iris remembered, even if she'd been a little drunk.

"Heather's husband was in the Crownsguard." Cor's voice was a bit rough when he said it, and most of the story became obvious from there. "The number of Crownsguard widows and widowers is fairly small... but the pension is still crap. Resources haven't leveled out enough to be generous."

"So you keep her son in candy?" Iris asked, voice soft, hopefully not too silly or making it seem like too little.

"Made Gladio fix her sink once," Cor added with a little smile that was obviously meant to lighten the conversation. "Ignis said he'd review the figures for the pension fund in another two months."

Iris considered. She knew they had a few Hunter widows and widowers as well and they usually got a portion of their spouse's old salary, but she realized the Crownsguard must have been an entirely different thing.

"Citadel?"

"Border conflict," he answered.

"I'll throw in a word with Ignis," she said, because that was the least she could do. "So many little messes..."

Cor understood, and he leaned into her and gave her a light nudge on the shoulder.

She liked it, as much as it always reminded her of how far they had to go, tackling things with Cor always made them seem... manageable. Things were still messy and nothing was together, but life was steady enough.

"It's weird how even though it's dark I still always feel... hope."

"That's why you make a good Captain," Cor answered, far too quickly to be forced. "You see things for what they are but also want to push them to be better."

The two of them returned to the office and Iris finished out most of her day with paperwork, running through scouting intelligence, and reviewing the reports from Meldacio, the Emporium, Old Lestallum, and Ravatogh.

"I'm off," she announced, and Cor gave her a wave. "I think I'm gonna make dumpling soup, you want in?"

"Sure. You need anything?"

"One guess."

Cor didn't even need to guess, just fished out his wallet and handed over a vegetable chit. "You should just steal his."

Iris couldn't disagree. She headed off to the markets at first, chatting up Chris and ordering an unconscionable amount of fabric.

"No conquest for the little black dress?" He asked.

"Too many!" She answered. "It probably works better if it's targeted." To be honest, she was pretty sure she had more fun sampling beer with Cor than anything she would have gotten up to with those guys... "So I've got some anak horns coming... that's decent button material, right?"

"Iris, you know I love you, but how am I supposed to get color shards and stones if I don't twist your arm for those?"

She pouted. "I'm looking at a bigger order than usual, almost a half a bolt... gotta make up the difference."

Chris pulled out his ubiquitous notebook and the two of them went into business, with Iris rattling off her needs. There were _so many_ , there was a baby blanket to make, some clothes, and she did still need to keep her own wardrobe - and Gladdy's - in decent shape... after that she headed to the store to pick up some vegetables and more food for the freezer before she headed into an evening of cooking.

Gladdy came home part way into her cooking and even managed to get roped into some dicing. "I don't think I've ever seen Ignis this over the moon, what a sap."

Iris giggled a little. "Their little dragoonlet. What did Prompto say when Ignis called?"

"I think the summary was 'eeeeee'," Gladdy said with his own little smile. "It's weird... probably the first thing that's felt normal in a long time for any of us."

"Well, normal's good sometimes. We've spent two years trying to get something that's almost normal..." Iris answered, thinking about how much she'd felt that of late. Her brother put the diced, sliced, and chopped veggies by the stove. "Oh, Cor's coming for dinner... and you should invite Talcott."

Talcott still spent a lot of time out at Hammerhead with Prompto, doing his own variation on Hunter training, but Iris liked to make sure he got a good meal a few times a week when he was in Lestallum.

He brought over 'gelatin sorbet' - Iris wasn't certain she wanted to know - and made himself useful by cleaning up and helping Iris get the birdbeast prepped for making more stock, and Cor arrived just in time to offer a thank you for a bowl of soup and some iced tea, joining them all out on the rooftop. It was no different from any other day, but it was a damn nice day, and Iris could get behind that.

Although she was still a bit out of sorts after her last grand attempt at going out to one of the bars, she eventually decided that the lure of vodka and a better game plan made it worthwhile. Heather was there again, and she put in an order for whatever the woman thought was slightly less head-pounding and still fruity.

She considered Cor's advice... or Aranea's delivered from Cor, and glanced over at the guys at the bar. It was pretty much impossible for Iris to date someone who was about her age, and her dating 'career' was largely filled with guys at least her brother's age, so she didn't necessarily mind some of the older guys other than that they were a lot more sketchy for the most part.

Heather returned with something that looked like a slushy ice mix that was quite possibly as big as Iris's head. "Is that blond guy nice?" She asked the woman.

She got a firm head shake at that. "Tonight I'd say..." She scanned over the assembled guys. "Good time or just a drink?"

"Drink."

"Tom's pretty alright," Heather answered. "Not my type but... decent to talk to." A quick description found Iris glancing at the man, mid-twenties at least, currently nursing something that Iris couldn't identify immediately. He had light brown hair and a slightly square face but he was hardly bad looking.

"What is your type?" Iris blurted, and then realized that was ridiculously personal for a woman she'd met only twice. "Sorry."

"Nah, s'alright, Captain," she answered with a slight grin. "Good with his hands." The added wink said the entendre was entirely intentional. "I'd settle for good with kids, though."

"I met James the other day," Iris realized that was pretty weird too. "You know, patrol."

Heather was definitely even more amused as Iris felt more and more like she was digging herself some sort of conversational hole. "Any friend of the marshal's," she assured Iris, soothing most of her worry that she was being an ass or digging too much. "Want me to tell the boy to buy you a drink?" Heather offered.

"Uh... sure?" She looked down at her glass, realizing that she literally just got a drink.

"Make him pay for that one," Heather answered with a wink.

Iris watched the woman go, and she realized that Heather was just... really nice, it was easy to see why Cor wanted to make sure the Crownsguard widows were taken care of... Heather probably wasn't even thirty if Iris had to guess, and she had a kid and a husband dead and if anything she could have rightly hated Cor and even Iris for the fact that her husband had died and instead she just kept keeping on.

When she glanced up she saw that the promised 'Tom' had come up and made a slightly awkward smile. "I'll just admit I'm bad at opening lines and we'll go from there?" He said. "Tom."

"Iris," she answered with a smile. At least he was a little funny. She tilted her head towards the seat across from her.

Tom was definitely on the awkward side, and Iris could see why Heather had rated him as 'nice but not her type' since he was mostly just an alright talker but wouldn't have wanted to push an unwelcome advance. It was almost like... dating training wheels, and Iris couldn't say she minded.

After a back and forth she managed to get out of Tom that he worked at one of the manufacturing plants that had cropped up over by the power plant, and that he was a machinist by trade. It wasn't the most scintillating but they did have a few choice bits to say about the upkeep of the southern parts of Cleigne and the power requirements. He was definitely _smart_ , and that wasn't bad... just not exactly exciting either.

It was strange because she realized after a few minutes of talking about machining cogs that she talked about this stuff with Cor all the time and it was never boring - well sometimes it was a little boring, she never was going to get excited about water treatment facility filters - but she always enjoyed the conversation.

The obvious answer was that Tom was not Cor, and Iris found herself pondering that more than anything else for a few moments.

Of course, the clear answer her slightly tipsy mind gave her was 'well you should date Cor, right?' and she found herself shocked and trying to focus on water... cooling... heat... transfer...

Why wasn't she making fun of beer with Cor?

Why wasn't she at the market laughing over crappy tea blends with Cor?

Why was she listening to some guy go on about hot water when she could have just as boring a conversation with Cor but they'd laugh about it too?

That was about the moment when her mind said she needed to think and not worry about trying to listen to Tom too, because her brain was a little out of control right then and she was trying to figure out why she suddenly had this really, really intense desire to see Cor and it was confusing and familiar all at the same time.

Iris did the very first thing her brother had taught her when she started to think about dates: she faked a work emergency and fled.

"That bad?" Heather asked as Iris passed over some chits when she was halfway to the door.

"Work emergency?" She said, and the two of them both knew she was lying but Iris was out the door in record time and breathing in the warm and spicy air of the market before she took a few scrambled steps towards the Overlook and then towards the old Coernix station.

The air was cool enough with the wind whipping along Telpar Crag but without the crowded together bodies that made up the Overlook proper.

Her frantic thoughts settled slightly after that, but the little kernel of an idea that had just smooshed 'Cor' and 'date' together refused to go away. Iris subconsciously ticked off a little list she wasn't even aware she had: interested in women, check; single, check; nice smile, check; interesting to talk to, check; great body, check...

Oh, Six, that was so not good...

After a calming reminder that nothing good came from panicking, Iris decided to go home, sleep off her vodka cocktail and wake up the next morning and... deal with the Cor-shaped problem in the morning.

Of course, the second she finished climbing the exterior stairs to her roof she found Cor was sitting at the fire, reading, an iced tea at his side, and when she was up he gave her a bright smile and a little wave. The part of Iris that had always intellectually known that Cor was a pretty good looking guy staged a brain rebellion to make certain that all fronts were notified of the fact that he was only wearing a t-shirt and said t-shirt was low enough cut to show off the top of his pectorals... the memo made certain to note that arms were also up for her consideration. Not even the very firm reminder that Cor wore something like that _all the time_ could make the sudden realization go away.

"Alright?" He asked, after a moment, and Iris realized she must have been staring off into space... or his pecs, definitely that... and she shook her head to clear it.

"Heather introduced me to a daiquiri," Iris said, yes, Iris is drunk, drunk Iris is just a little slow and not staring at her friend and subordinate and hot guy... or so her brain tried to tell herself.

"Cheating on vodka with rum? The honeymoon period is truly over."

"It was a vodka daiquiri," she answered, and she crossed her arms over her chest and glowered. "I didn't cheat."

Cor's reaction was, of course, to chuckle, which made him smile, which made horrible traitor Iris's brain retract the previous memo about 'nice smile' and upgrade it to 'why is he so cute?!'

"I should sleep." She said the first intelligent thing her brain had decided in hours. "My brain is dumb."

"Goodnight, Iris," Cor answered, still smiling.

She fled to her apartment after that and took the very coldest shower her body could handle before she hid under the covers and hoped that Cor would not be cute in the morning.

...

He was still cute in the morning.


	4. Chapter 4

.8.

It took Iris approximately two days to decide that the terror that was ‘Cor is cute’ wasn’t all that bad. She’d had crushes before... well _a_ crush, and she’d dated a few guys, she figured she had enough experience under her belt to not go completely to mush. She was Daemon Slayer Iris, she could handle a crush.

"Dustin and Biggs should be arriving in Tenebrae shortly," Cor said, and Iris’s head snapped up, a little confused for a moment, and then she remembered that the men should be arriving by airship shortly to begin to organize the refugees coming into Lestallum. "Ignis has been forwarding a few of the relocation requests from the Plant for us to approve."

"Why do they need our approval?" Iris asked, because she didn’t _think_ there was much reason it should matter to them who, exactly, went to Aracheole. They were still working over the general assignments to cover the area, volunteers would be nice, but not vital.

"A few of them are attached to Hunters, so we need to approve them either to serve in Aracheole or organize some way for them to get to Lestallum regularly."

"I don’t want to deal with the regular transport," Iris answered, she didn’t want to deal with a lot of things. "But if we did keep a few posted here it would at least make the... commute safer. We have enough postings over there, but we’re going to need to put someone with some authority there. I’d assign Prompto but he really does want to stay around Hammerhead as much as possible..." She frowned.

"Ah, here’s a list of the men and women requesting assignment."

Iris took it, and glanced down it and noted one name in particular: Tiffany had requested a reassignment. That was strange, since she knew Justin hadn’t been that interested in moving out to Aracheole, but he was happy enough to spend a few weeks there with Iris. She frowned.

"Hasn’t Whills been a bit of a fuckup during training lately?" Iris asked, singling out one of the men she was less than pleased about letting out of Cor’s daily tender mercies.

Cor nodded. "Unfortunately his wife is one of the top agricultural... people." She snorted, Iris imagined that she was some sort of ‘agricultural science biotowhatevernist’. "Saxham says she’s one of the best to take over the startup of such a huge operation, so as much as I’d like to, I’m not sure I can justify keeping her husband here."

"How’s such a smart woman end up with such a meh guy?" Iris asked, obviously rhetorical, and Cor didn’t answer. "Well I guess that’s going to have to be approved." She scribbled a signature next to that assignment before continuing down the list. "Do we have a good option for a drill sergeant type?"

"Not as of yet."

They went back and forth on a few potential people for the posting, and the increase in ration chits that would be required to entice the more reluctant to accept the assignment, or at least not be bitter about it.

Of course, that was about the same time Cor raised an arm over his head and began the task of stretching out his arms and shoulders. It wasn’t unusual, Cor did it frequently enough, but sweet Six it was distracting now.

Iris did the only thing she could think of, she pulled out her phone and texted Aranea: _’What do you do if you find a coworker attractive?’_

The answer didn’t come for several minutes, which Iris decided was probably fair. _’U decide if it worth, then u invite them 4 a get-to-know-you fuck.’_

She felt her eyes widen and then she decided that she was _not_ going to follow Aranea’s advice. That sounded terrible. There would be no ‘get-to-know-you’ fuck! Unfortunately, the only person for her to glare at was her phone, and Cor, so she ended up glaring at him, and after a few minutes he responded with his customary arched eyebrow, and Iris went back to glaring at her phone so he wouldn’t question her.

The first part of Aranea’s advice, however, was probably solid: decide if it’s worth the hassle.

"You seem a bit distracted," Cor noted a few minutes later, and Iris cursed the fact that she was fairly easy to read for Cor.

"A bit," she answered, since she knew she couldn’t lie about something that obvious. "Just thinking about... stuff."

Cor looked like he was going to make a smartassed comment for a few moments, but then thought better of it and gave her a slight smile that caused Iris to note, yet again, that Cor was pretty damn attractive sometimes. "Do you need some time?" He asked. "There’s no shame in taking a breather if it helps you clear your mind."

"Right." Cor must have thought something was bothering her, and she supposed a lot of things were weighing on her, but in that moment she was just confused at herself, and almost irritated at his kindness. Iris almost wanted to yell at him to stop being cute so she could think. "I’m gonna take a walk."

He nodded, and she stood, heading out of the office and into the crisp air of Lestallum.

Eventually she found herself at one of the fires by the Overlook, taking in the distant view of Aracheole and thinking a mix of confusing thoughts. Things were unsettling, things were still growing and changing... and then her phone chimed.

 _’So who u want 2 fuck?’_ Iris glared down at Aranea’s text.

 _’No one.’_ She absolutely didn’t want to fuck Cor! Well, maybe she did, just a tiny bit, but it wasn’t the sort of thing she wanted to rush... She was still a virgin, she and Justin had messed around extensively but between busy lives and Iris’s mild reluctance she’d never done that with a guy, and even if she did she couldn’t just... that wouldn’t work. _’It wouldn’t be like that,’_ she answered Aranea finally.

_’O. Who u want 2 kiss?’_

Iris glowered down at the phone again. _’Forget it.’_

Now it was in her head, worse than before. She hadn’t really been thinking about the consequences of ‘Cor is cute’ but now she couldn’t deny that Aranea was making her think about them. And yes, Cor was good looking, but did that really mean she should date him, or even try? If she’d learned one thing from Gladdy over the years it was that attraction was really only the start of things.

"Are you alright, Captain?"

Iris glanced up to see Heather standing nearby, what looked like it might be a cup of coffee in her hand. "Oh, yeah I’m fine, just having a moment to think."

"You seem upset," she offered a few moments later.

"No, it’s... stupid, just dealing with guy problems I guess?"

Heather chuckled, and then took the seat near her uninvited, but Iris didn’t mind at all. "I suppose it’s comforting to know you can run at least a third of the city, and kill an Iron Giant with your pinky, and you’ve still got the occasional boy trouble."

Iris snorted. "It wasn’t my pinky..." She supposed the rest must seem pretty funny thought. "I guess I’m just young enough where the whole thing is pretty confusing, yaknow?"

"I know how that goes," Heather said, and then nudged Iris with a shoulder. "Walt and I were high school sweethearts, everything is pretty simple when you’re that young. James made the whole thing a little less complicated..."

"Can I ask you a really personal question?" Iris asked. Heather had shared at least a bit right then, but Iris didn’t want to pry too badly if the woman wanted to keep more to herself. 

Heather nodded, however.

"Do you think you can be... in love, really in love, with someone at that age? Like not stars in your eyes, totally stupid and over your head, actually in love?" Iris wasn’t going to call what she was feeling love, but she also knew there was no way she should think about dating someone so important to her if she wasn’t serious about it. The more she thought about it the more she realized she couldn’t even _think_ about Cor like that if there was a chance it would ruin the Hunters and everything they had worked for.

"Think you’re in love, Captain?” Heather asked, a slight tease in her voice, but she seemed to really consider it after that. "Probably, you’re right that it’s much easier to mistake something else for love when you’re less experienced, though."

Iris wondered how much to confide in Heather, or at all, but she realized that of all the people she knew she might get the most balanced advice from Heather. She couldn’t ask Aranea, that would just get her ‘fuck him’ advice, and honestly Gladdy wasn’t much better, Ignis might be alright but Iris sort of wanted to talk to a girl, and never mind even thinking about talking about it with Cor.

"I like a guy," Iris said, finally.

"For how long?"

Iris thought about it, because part of her wanted to say ‘three days’ (while realizing that was a terrible number to give for something so important), but the more she thought about it the more she realized that even if she hadn’t realized it, she’d liked Cor for a long time. In a lot of ways, her _liking_ him had been long-standing, since the moment he acted like she should lead rather than shut up and follow him. She didn’t have a crush on him then, but something that could have been sort of bad ended up being one of her best friendships in the dark. She was closer to Cor now than she was to Ignis, and she’d known Ignis so much longer... 

"I don’t know," she answered. "I realized it three days ago."

"You’ve been dating," Heather said. "I know that, Cor mentioned you’d been seeing that guy from the Plant."

"Justin," Iris said, and then frowned at the idea that Cor had talked to Heather about Justin. "We broke up a few weeks ago."

"What’s stopping you from going up to this guy and asking him out?"

"I’m..." She thought about it. "I’m really afraid. I asked Justin out, yaknow? But it didn’t really matter if he said no or not, or if we worked out or not. He was a guy I’d just met and we don’t even work together so if he said no or we didn’t work out I’d barely have to see him again. Heck, I hadn’t even thought about him for days until I got a request for him and his new girlfriend to move Aracheole. There was no... risk."

"And with this other guy there’d be more on the line?" Heather asked, because she was pretty good at the listening and figuring out stuff, it seemed. Probably her waitressing paying off.

"Not to sound melodramatic... but it could ruin my whole life."

"Sounds pretty melodramatic." Heather chuckled though.

"But it could ruin my work and everything I do with Lestallum and I could lose one of my best friends all in one stupid fuckup," Iris said, and when she said it like that it just wasn’t worth it. She _couldn’t_ date Cor, it could ruin everything. One little fight and Lestallum could lose the easy relationship between her Captain and her Marshal. "What if I lost him?" She realized what she said, and who she said it to, a moment later and she recoiled. "Shit, I mean..."

"I understand," Heather assured her, and added a gentle arm on the shoulder. "It’s been almost four years. I’ve been apart from him almost as long as we’d been together. Doesn’t make it any easier, but it does give you some perspective."

"Yeah, I think I just realized I can’t really think about him like that," Iris said, but the idea of that hurt in a way she couldn’t quite describe. "Just with so much on the line it would be selfish to even try. If we can’t trust each other and read each other and know each other, it would just..."

"Did you go and fall in love with the marshal?" Heather asked, her voice saying it was a joke but that still didn’t stop the instinctual way that Iris looked up and made a face that said ‘oh shit’ that would have been impossible to misinterpret. Heather’s reaction was just as startled as she realized her little joke had hit true. "Oh. So, that would be a yes?"

Iris folded herself over, just a bit, pressing her flushed face against her knees and breathing in for a moment. "I wouldn’t say _love_."

"I see what you mean, though," Heather said, and she placed a hand against Iris’s back and rubbed slightly, a bit like a mother might, but she supposed that made sense. Even if Heather wasn’t that much older than Iris she was a mom, she knew mom ways. "That would have to be a shock to realize."

"It was," Iris answered, finally sitting up again so she could look at Heather. The bandage ripped off, she supposed she could allow herself to bleed everywhere, her heart gross and open and bloody. "At first it was just realizing that Tom was super boring and that when I talked to Cor about things it wasn’t boring. That was it... and then just he’s super cute and funny and I’d rather spend time with him than almost anywhere else. You remember that night I came in wearing that black dress?"

Heather nodded, her lips had a little smile to them.

"Cor rescued me and we drank beer and... I know this is going to sound super pathetic but I think that’s the nicest date I’ve ever had, and that’s counting this really sweet guy named Erik who I dated for three whole months back in Insomnia who like seriously asked me if I wanted him to ask my dad to court me. It was a bit weird but he definitely was earnest. I know it wasn’t a date, obviously, but just... even when we’re not the Captain and the Marshal I just... want to be around him." 

That was about when she realized she was crying, and she brought her arm up to rub away the tears. She didn’t even quite understand _why_ she was crying, not immediately, until she realized it was because she knew she couldn’t risk it, she couldn’t break what they had.

"I can’t," she said, folding her hands in her lap and nodding. "It’s way too important that we are colleagues." When she looked down at her hands she caught sight of the little charm Cor had given her weeks ago and she’d forgotten to return.

She didn’t mean to, but she tilted her arm to look at it and Heather must have caught the glint but she looked over and made a soft gasp. "That’s... um..."

Iris frowned and looked over to Heather. "Hrm?"

"That’s the marshal’s distinguished service medal," she said a moment later. "I’m not sure anyone could tell you how he actually earned it, but the rumor was that he saved Prince Regis from a Niflheim assassin and King Mors opened up the old reliquary of Lucian artifacts for that one. It’s a priceless antique."

"Oh." She had wondered about it but the idea that it was a distinguished service medal... Iris knew that was the second highest military honor that the Crownsguard recognized, and there were only a handful given by any one king. "I... he gave it to me so he wouldn’t worry about me."

Iris covered it with her hand, unaccountably embarrassed now, and she could feel her pulse hammering against it, the pressure making the beating of her heart more obvious there.

"Iris..." Heather began, and Iris’s head snapped up, worried and confused, but she looked and waited for Heather to continue. "I’m not going to tell you what to do, but I will tell you that the marshal is a steady man."

"I know." A breath later she realized what Heather was saying. If she decided to mention her feelings to Cor, he could handle it. "Ugh this is too complicated. I need to think about it."

"Probably for the best," Heather said, and she reached out and place a hand on Iris’s shoulder. "And in case it needed saying, I won’t mention this to him. It’s something you deserve to talk to him about when you’re ready."

"Thanks..." She was still incredibly embarrassed to be so easily found out. She would need to be way more careful about how she talked about this, _if_ she talked about it again. "Not going to blackmail me or something?" She asked, obviously making a joke of it.

Heather smiled. "Of course not, besides, if I were going to it would just be to get your brother to show me a good time sometime." She added a little wink after that, and Iris looked over to her, disgusted and scandalized. Not _Gladdy_ , Heather could do so much better. She laughed, though, and nudged Iris’s shoulder. "Your brother’s cute, sorry."

"He’s also a big old slut," Iris answered. "I mean you want a good time he’s your... guy, probably, I think? He gets good reviews, but he’s not a serious type of guy if you want that."

"Ah well," she said, with a wistful sigh. "I’ll have to pass."

"Sorry, you deserve a cool guy but Gladdy’s not really a forever guy." Iris didn’t really know what else to say beyond that. "Thanks for listening," she said a few moments later. "And for not telling Cor... I can’t deal with it all right now. I really need to think it out, make sure it’s the right move, or that it’s not."

Iris went to the market after that, and didn’t think about Cor for a whole hour while she blissfully wandered the stalls and eventually picked up some tea and a tiny little tin of some sort of plant sugar that wasn’t from cane. She then returned to the office, head a little clearer, only to look down at the tin of tea in her hands. "I bought us some tea." 

It was black. Iris didn’t _hate_ black tea, she just preferred herbal, flowers, and greens. Cor liked black tea... with just a little bit of sugar.

 _So much for that grand plan, Amicitia._ She told herself.

Cor liked the tea, and Iris did too, and the two of them picked apart the flavor of it and kicked their feet up on the desk and enjoyed a lazy administrative afternoon. She could do this, she could, life would go on and be normal and she’d figure out if everything even made sense. She did know that Heather was right, now that she was thinking about it. Cor wouldn’t just abandon Lestallum and the Hunters just because she cared for him, but she did know there was no way she could think about dating someone else now that the idea of Cor had entered her mind. Her feelings for Noct had always kept her hesitant to date other boys, and now she found herself feeling the same way about Cor.

Apparently she was doomed to a life of hopeless crushes on boys she couldn’t have, but at least she knew she could soldier on either way.

*

Cor reflected that there was a certain harsh humor to the universe. Even things that should have been simple became monumental efforts, and certain things that should have been complicated were simple in the cold dark of night. Ignis and Talcott headed to Tenebrae with the first round of full-scale refugee evacuation ships, there for several weeks.

Aranea had been assigned to the various refugee ships, intending to be one of the ship captains that flew the refugees to Lestallum for a quick census and citizenship check while Biggs and Wedge continued their sacking and looting of every nook and cranny of Gralea. Simple.

All of that meant that Wedge’s team ended up finding a ice covered Niff fortress that was infested with more daemons than Cor could swing a sword at; they _would_ have been content to leave well-enough alone were it not for the fact that an incredibly weak radio distress signal was being continually broadcast out of the bowels of the fortress.

"Could be some sort of repeating thing," Iris offered to the assembled men - Dave and Cor mostly - as they considered their movements. "However..."

"Don’t think it is," Dave said. "Normal old radio’d be dead by now, it’d need either power or if it’s an old emergency radio some of them had hand cranks if you believe it."

"A hand crank?" Iris shook her head at the whole idea, and for a moment Cor felt very old. "Could people really be alive in there?"

"Yes." That was Cor’s military answer, even if he didn’t like it. "They would likely be starved unless the stores were incredibly well stocked and rationing was tightly enforced. With a secure bunker, at least some power, and a large amount of intelligence they may have been able to survive this long, or they’ve descended into some sort of cannibalistic morass of terror."

"You know, one or the other," Iris said, her voice wry at the nonchalant way Cor gave their options. "Well, Tenebrae is secure, these people are surrounded by daemons and asking for help. We’ll make it happen."

"We do have enough manpower to slow the evacuation, but continue it," Dave offered, and Iris nodded.

"We’ll do that, but Cor I want you to lead on this, take whoever you need. Ignis can do some pre-processing Tenebrae side, and I’ll work receiving," Iris said. "Dave, I’d like to organize a pick up the patrols in the Triangle, make sure it’s clear."

‘The Triangle’, the small area sketched by Lestallum, Meldacio, and Aracheole, was their highest value land and the main priority when it came to securing people. It also housed their northern access to the Lucinia Sound and occasional fishing. Cor nodded.

Dave excused himself, leaving Cor and Iris to look at the map of the icy tundra that was the remains of the Gralean base.

"You’re taking this," Iris said. She reached down to her wrist and tugged at his medal, trying to loosen the straps, but Cor reached out and wrapped his hand around her wrist, pinning it there. Her heart hammered beneath his grip, and he released her a moment later.

"I already said I have ‘not dying’ figured out," he said. He also knew that such a thing was not going to be the difference between life and death, but the peace of mind it gave him couldn’t be overstated.

"But I’m allowed to be worried about you, right?" 

He really couldn’t deny that, and so when she moved to give him the charm he didn’t protest this time, and she placed it in his palm, fingers on his wrist and used her other hand to roll his fingers closed on it. "Be safe."

Aranea grumbled her way onto the rescue mission, even though Cor considered four months pregnant to be pretty borderline for a woman being out in the field. So did Ignis if the arguments he had to catch parts of every day were anything to go by.

The base they inserted at this time was massive, at almost three hundred thousand acres, so it wasn’t nearly so simple as landing and waiting for the fiends to come for them. Killing even the frost imps was a fight of prolonged hours, with the larger daemons inhabiting the place in similarly large numbers.

In the end, the push saved them almost a thousand starving souls, most of them young, none of them able in the moment. A lot of them needed to be carried to the transports, the walk far too long on emaciated and poorly nourished legs.

"What a world," he said to Aranea as the two of them stood near the front of one of the transports.

"I know what you mean," she answered, and Cor didn’t miss the way her hand rested at her stomach for a moment, clearly thinking of her child and the world she’d decided to bring it into. "When I found out I was pregnant, I thought Ignis would be furious about bringing a kid into the world. He’s so... fussy and rational, but instead he turned his head towards me and said that there is no perfect time and no perfect place, only more and less imperfect. You’ve just gotta make do with what you get."

Cor spent two days in Tenebrae regaining his focus and helping Ignis organize the evacuation now that they had numbers for the Gralea refugees. There had been tens of thousands more that had come to Lestallum just after the dark had fallen, and Cor hoped the new ones could be integrated well enough, but it was even more mouths to feed, and starving ones at that.

He caught a transport back to Lestallum and headed into HQ to catch a long, hot shower and to try to bleed away the anguish of starving bodies and making do with a world covered in darkness. Of course, as soon as he stepped into his office he was greeted by Iris, and her bright smile, and what remained of his frustration bled away far too easily.

Iris looked to be busy with the refugees, if her focus was any indication. "Doing alright?" She asked after he sat down.

"Well enough," he answered, and it wasn’t even a lie. "Aranea and Ignis seem to have discovered new ways to be infuriated at each other and I’m only too glad to no longer be on the same continent. How are the refugees settling in?"

"Well enough," she echoed his sentiment. "They’re mostly in some of the older worker houses, jammed together like sardines, but they are too used to the deprivation to even care. Dustin’s working on recovery plans to see they don’t eat themselves to death and we don’t run out of food feeding them."

It made sense, and Cor nodded in response.

"You wanna take a day or two? You're probably exhausted."

He always made her the same offer, and she usually took him up on it, but Cor settled into his chair opposite her. "At least give me the rundown first."

They went over the state of the city and Cor relaxed into the flow of things. There were the usual hiccups, but the truth was Cor was becoming more and more at home with the little fires. It allowed him the settled calm of a man who was relatively comfortable with his place in the universe.

"Hey, um..."

Cor glanced up. Iris looked a little nervous for a moment, which concerned Cor slightly, but she took a deep breath and then plowed forward.

"Would you consider going out on a date with me?"

Cor stared at Iris for a moment, not quite certain he had heard her correctly despite the fact he couldn't think of much else she could have asked.

"It's alright if you don't," Iris continued. "I just was thinking about it for a while and I realized I didn't really want to think about dating anyone else until I at least asked."

No, he'd heard her correctly. Iris had asked him out on a date.

"I don't think it would be that weird, I just like spending time with you and you're cute and... um..." She seemed to run out of steam after that and then bit her lip.

Cor reflected on the irony of the fact that he could deal with dozens of daemons and Niff dropships and explosions... and possibly a coeurl or two, but the mere act of Iris asking him on a date had rendered him confused and speechless.

"I..." He tried to figure out what he wanted to say. "I'm sure you could... do better."

Iris gave him the look she always reserved for when she wanted to express her disapproval. "I didn't ask if I could do better. I asked if you'd go on a date."

"You asked if I'd consider it..."

Iris sighed. "Alright, got it. 'No'. I won't be weird, alright?"

"Yeah..." He agreed, before he realized he was an idiot and... "Wait. Why the hell did you ask me out?"

"Did you hit your head or something?" She asked, and then she waved her hand in front of his face and he grabbed her wrist before he realized that left him holding her hand and he released it.

"I'm just a little confused why you'd even think about it."

"Honestly I'm kind of surprised I didn't think of it earlier," she answered, causing Cor to wonder what sort of bizarre state of affairs had overtaking Lestallum in the weeks he'd been away. "So is that a 'no' or an 'Iris, I'm entirely confused by the question'?"

Cor wasn't certain how to respond to that. He'd been struggling with an attraction to Iris for _months_ , and he'd largely worked it into a state where he could ignore it, note the attraction, and move on. Sometimes she'd do something particularly caring and a small part of him would melt a bit, but he had never, ever intended her to have any idea how he felt... it honestly seemed like it had worked because Iris seemed quite certain he was uninterested.

"Iris, I'm... old." Forty-seven, not exactly ancient, but certainly too old to reasonably be dating a woman thirty years his junior.

"Really?" She asked. "I didn't notice. What do you want me to say?" She asked, and he could tell she was definitely getting upset. It was a fairly rare state for her, she didn't work herself up, usually.

"I want to know what on Eos made you think that I'm a reasonable choice for a date," he said, because he still couldn't figure out why Iris would have any reason to even look at him like that. She was young, and beautiful, and very popular with men. She hardly needed to settle for an old man.

"Can't you just say no like a decent human being?" She asked, and she stood now, and she looked like she was about to cry. "I thought... I mean at worst I figured it would be weird for a few days and we'd move on. 'No, sorry, don't see you that way'... I just wanted to see if you'd give it a go before I go back to trying to date someone I'm not in love with..." Iris's eyes widened, and she realized exactly what she said, and then Cor watched her make a very, very fast strategic withdrawal, shutting the door behind her and leaving him breathless with the wind knocked out of him.

Cor was left with almost no idea of what the hell had just happened. Iris had... asked him out on a date and very much implied she was in love with him. Normally Cor would have been inclined to tell himself that Iris was a young woman, that she would fall in and out of love easily, but she knew even at the height of her romance with Justin she was no more effusive than 'I like him'.

"You are a fucking idiot." He blamed it on the fact that he was exhausted and she had just blindsided him. He spent so long pushing his feelings down, ignoring them, and setting them aside that Iris putting herself out there had made him... callous at best.

Months of telling himself not to show her anything more than friendship meant that being honest about something deeper than that... well it wasn't going to come easily.

A string of texts to her went unanswered: 'Where are you?' 'I'm sorry. That was insensitive.' 'Let me try that again.' ...

The door slammed open and for a moment he expected Iris only to see Desmond, one of the hunters, with a wide eyed look. "Imps and bombs, North Overpass, they're almost at the houses."

He fired off a final text: 'daemons. north overpass.' but heard no chime in response as he ran. Of. Fucking. Course. You get settled in and then there are daemons and the most complicated tangle of emotions he'd ever had about woman exploding around him.

"Set up a damn screen!" Was the first thing he heard when he got in range, and he came to a halt just behind a line of hunters, a few with shields, most with knives, and Iris ahead of the lot with her tonfas out. They weren't well designed for fighting off the grenades, a larger sword or a shield helped keep the flames and the inevitable explosions at bay, but Cor knew she could make do with them.

"Push forward," he ordered the men brandishing shields. "Get them farther back from the housing area." The men who _should_ have been fighting got a quick overhand beckon as Cor pushed through the line. "Get up here, you don't get paid to gawk while the Captain does all the work."

He slid up beside Iris, hand on his sword.

"I think the imps are in charge," she said, tilting her head back. "Usually they're just pranksters but..."

"I'll push through and see if I can find the head," he answered.

Cor watched for a moment as Iris used a harsh spin of her weapon to send one of the grenades over the edge of road and into the Crag, leaving a reverberating explosion when it impacted either the bottom or side. He cut forward a few moments later, leaving himself enough space to dash along and finally push into the back lines where dozens of imps danced and cackled, scratching towards Cor as he dodged and parried the swipes of claw.

A few swift cuts bought him some breathing room, and he tried to acclimate to the darkness and note the lay of the land.

Reflexes saved him before his mind did, the sound of a drawn sword urging his body to dance away from where he was and Cor's eyes caught the slash of steel that followed, glinting off the lights from the edges of Lestallum.

A ronin... the daemon's twisted face, no mouth and no nose, turned towards him and assessed. In a single fight he'd have little to worry about, but the continued presence of imps at his heels complicated things, his mind split itself as much as he was able, minding his surroundings while he focused on the new foe.

The two of them met, clashed, and then danced back, each draw of the sword met with a parry. His opponent flinched first, and Cor was able to break his guard just long enough to land the telling blow, splitting the daemon from shoulder to groin in one draw before it puffed, leaving behind Scourge and an empty hollow in the daemon lines.

Most of the front lines had been destroyed, and Cor only needed a bit more effort to clean out the imps that remained around.

"Shit, Captain." One of the men, Will, maybe, was kneeling over a prone form with a tonfa by its side.

Cor's heart might have stopped in that moment, and he dashed closer only to see that Iris was... well...

He snorted.

"Shut your damn face," Iris grumbled, rolling onto her side and then sitting up. Her face was completely covered in soot, a look Cor was only too familiar with when he or someone else had gotten too close to an exploding grenade or someone's idea of a proper use of fire elemancy. "And you... be more careful, Six, there's a whole damn Crag on one side! You could have sent someone over!"

"I'm sorry, sir," Will continued, and he looked like he was close to pissing himself. "Really... really sorry, it won't happen again, sir."

"See that it doesn't," she answered, and Cor put a hand out, which Iris took, hauling herself up before she grabbed her dropped weapons. "Congratulations, you volunteered to run a sweep for more."

"There was a ronin in the back lines," Cor said a moment later.

"Carefully." Iris gave Will a firm look, and then pointed at a few more of the men, who nodded immediately. "I need to call Meldacio and get them apprised, a fucking brigade in the Triangle." She left back towards Lestallum, and Cor took a few more moments to make certain everything was ordered before he hurried after her.

It didn't take long to catch her, Iris was making a quick stop in at the carton houses that were closest to the end of the Overpass, asking the residents if there was damage and making certain they were alright.

"I'm never going to be clean," she said, and he watched her rub her cheek against her shoulder to try to get rid of some of the soot. A few moments later she reached into a pocket and drew out her phone, and Cor realized that Iris hadn't been ignoring his texts... she'd already been at the Overpass. "Insensitive," she said, obviously reading his texts. "Huh."

"I made a mess of that," he said, and then he cleared his throat, looking down the hundreds meters of overpass. The whole length of it was longer than the main drag of Lestallum.

"Well we seem to be walking the same way," Iris answered after a moment. "You can get in your second try at it."

"You caught me off guard," he said, that he felt like he needed to get out of the way first.

"Because you hadn't really thought about me in those terms?" She asked, fairly reasonably, Cor supposed.

"Because..." Cor took a deep breath, looking up at the ceiling of the Overpass, looking at the lights there, taking a moment to count them and decide what to say. Honesty, he had always tried to be honest with her... he supposed he could start that promise again. "Because I had. Because I had, and I knew it was inappropriate, and I resolved to never, ever act on it."

"Wait... you... you feel the same?"

"Yes." Part of him still felt like he needed to hold back, but he tried to push it down. "I... yes. I have for some time... months."

"Months?" Iris looked over at him, confused. "Why didn't you say anything?"

"Iris, you're... I'm old enough to be your father." There he'd said it, and he knew she knew that, but he turned away to collect his thoughts for a moment. "I was friends _with_ your father. Do you really think that would have been appropriate for me to bring to you?"

Iris nodded, and for a moment Cor didn't know what she meant. "You're right. Honestly months ago I think it would have just confused me."

Cor let out a sigh of relief, because he hadn't been wrong, he knew that, pushing his feelings on Iris would have been reprehensible at best. "Now... to answer your original question. Would I think about going on a date with you? Yes, I'll think about it... am I prepared to? No. I just... need some time."

"Alright." Iris nodded again, and looked at him, smiling, which just caused him to chuckle and Iris to grumble and try to dust off her face more. "So... not no?"

"Not no."

"... Not really yes either..." She seemed to think about that for a moment, chewing it over. "Well... either way, I've got pot roast on at home and orange cake for dessert. Hopefully I can scrounge up something green but Monica didn't have any salad in yesterday. You in?"

"I'm in," he answered. "I'll hit the grocery, you... should probably have a shower."

"I _want_ a bath." Iris stretched, and Cor could even hear her back pop. "I am covered in soot, and I'm sore, and I think I went at least eight feet when that stupid thing exploded in my face."

An idea came to him, and he couldn't help but smirk. "Well... Ignis and Aranea are out of town, and I have a key to their apartment."

Iris snorted. "You're saying we should break into their apartment so I could take a bath?"

"It's not really breaking in..."

"Why do you even have a key?"

"Technically it's so I can get state documents out if Ignis or Aranea leave something at home and then head out of town... or because they're being children and the Captain of the Crownsguard wants a bubble bath."

"No one said anything about a bubble bath," Iris answered with a slight glare.

Cor arched an eyebrow.

"Ok, yeah, bubble bath..." She let out a slight giggle. "Breaking in to have a bath... yup, I earned it. You are a terrible enabler."

He couldn't disagree.

They went their separate ways when they hit the city, and Cor headed to the Hunter market. He knew Iris wanted a salad, but there was nothing even vaguely close, not even spinach, so he eventually picked up some green beans and headed home, changed into a t-shirt and slacks, and then gave himself a long, hard look in the mirror.

Objectively, he looked like shit. He hadn't slept very well in the weeks he'd been out, his hair was still a mess, and he hadn't shaved properly either. He fixed the shave, at least, the hair... well he could see to that in the next day or two, but he really was at a loss as to why Iris would look at him and have any interest at all... but she'd asked.

He owed it to her to try.

Then again, when he made his way across the roof patio to Iris and Gladio's place, Iris answered the door and he saw she'd lost an entire two locks of her bangs to the grenade and he realized that if he still thought she looked amazing to him with her bangs fried... he probably looked adequate after two weeks in the wilds.

"Green beans," he announced. She pouted slightly, but he knew she was just being silly. "Need a hand?"

She nudged him towards the cutting board and he went to work on prepping the beans while Iris continued her task of icing the promised orange cake.

"Who else for dinner?" He asked.

"Gladdy, of course, Prompto's in town, Talcott... and... um... HeatherandJames..."

He gave Iris a confused look. Heather and James... He supposed Iris might have become more friendly with Heather in the two or so months since they'd met, but it was an odd friendship to have struck up that quickly.

"Okay, um... so tonight was _supposed_ to be testing to see if Gladdy would be slutty or maybe... you know... into a cute single mom?"

"You're matchmaking your brother." Cor wasn't certain if he admired or was terrified by Iris's... cunning? resourcefulness?

"Turnabout, blah blah... he said he was _thinking_ about settling down. 'Thinking'... that's like a Gladdy commitment," Iris continued to rattle off the elements to her grand plan as she iced the cake. "Heather likes 'em built... they're about the same age, he doesn't hunt overmuch so it's not like he's on the front lines as much as... you know, a full time Hunter would be. She's cute... redhead... so basically she's Gladdy's type since his type is 'good looking'. I invited James because orange cake is delicious and so Gladdy knows I'm going to kick his ass if he's a douche."

"You've got it all sorted out."

"Trying to decide if you're disapproving or impressed," Iris said, glancing over to him.

"I am too," he admitted. "Is Heather in on this?"

"Duh," she answered. "You remember how you made Gladdy fix her sink a few months ago?"

" _I'm_ in on this?!" He was trying to decide if he was impressed with his own cunning, but honestly he wasn't great on that front today.

"Yup." Iris looked at the cake again, and spun it slowly to check for even frosting, and then neatly covered it with an upside down pot, and then swiped her finger through the remaining icing and stuck it in her mouth with a pleased hum, thereby accidentally making Cor's brain completely head off the rails and he returned to the beans lest he cut off his own finger in the process. "Alright... green beans and... done."

She got up on her toes and glanced at the clock, and then washed her hands and got some water ready to boil.

"Hmm... fancy green beans?"

Cor shrugged.

"Super helpful."

"Prelude to a date, right? Why not go fancy?"

Iris then gave him a slight glower, which reminded Cor that he was still trying to sort out how he was going to handle his own feelings for Iris. He attempted an innocent smile which only made her glower further.

"That's my look," he said, and he reached out to brush a thumb over her forehead smoothing the wrinkled brow, and Iris reached up to take his hand and brought it down to her shoulder, squeezing it for a moment before she went back to the stove.

"Go be a distracting menace on the couch," she said.

Cor did as instructed, sitting down on the couch and watching Iris pull out far more cookery than he thought was needed for some damn green beans but then again he'd said fancy. Several minutes later he was instructed to fork apart the roast, which he dutifully did, and Iris was in the midst of something involving butter and garlic when she opened the door looked out, and then turned back to Cor and gave a thumbs up.

A few more shuffled minutes in the kitchen and Cor was serving pot roast while Iris piled on green beans and the lot of them managed to make a circle around the fire, with Iris doing a fairly innocuous job of distracting James, Prompto, and Talcott while Gladio and Heather chatted.

Cor, realizing he was something of a... spare wheel at the moment, listened in on the Iris conversation and took a moment to reflect on the fact that she was... incredible.

The reflexive denial was still uncomfortably present, but he tamped it down.

The odd part was that other than a few stray touches, they were hardly any different from usual. He came over for dinner often enough, Iris made him help cook plenty of times, they chatted and spent time together... they had admittedly never plotted breaking into Ignis and Aranea's apartment, but that had little to do with confessed attraction and everything to do with the fact that Cor was a sap and would happily get Iris whatever she wanted... including feloniously acquired bathtub access.

Dessert was a smash hit all around, and Heather said she needed to head off soon after with a half asleep James trailing in her wake... only for Gladio to offer to walk her home, and Cor shamelessly bribed Talcott and Prompto into leaving with a huge slice of leftover cake, he and Iris eventually returning to her apartment and Cor got to work on the dishes.

"I think that went pretty well..." Iris said, laying back on her couch, eyes closed.

"Yup, Heather was impressed with your cooking," Cor said, storing the leftovers and then getting to work soaking pans. "She'll probably want to marry you to have more of your cooking."

Iris snorted. "I cook for people... no marriage required."

Cor probably should have considered that conversational opener better... after he had everything soaking he dried his hands and turned around, Iris was comfortably sprawled, wrist over her eyes, and Cor realized he was just being a damn idiot. Yes, he was going to take a while to be able to let himself really care about Iris freely, but he already _did_ care about her, just because he hadn't let himself consider her as a romantic partner didn't mean they weren't already good friends, and the attraction hadn't gone, it was simply something he didn't consider for his own sanity.

"Want to hit the market tomorrow?" He asked. She tilted her head up to look at him. "A date."

Iris answered with a bright smile that quickly turned sly. "I dunno, why would you want to date me?"

He supposed he'd earned that, so he took a few steps over to the couch and then with little provocation he ended up sitting by her head and his thigh quickly became used as a pillow.

"Because you're beautiful and kind. I would rather spend my time with you than almost anywhere else." He reached down, brushing his fingers against her cheek and Iris tilted her head into it. "A lot of reasons... even if I'm still not sure why you want to date me."

"Oh yeah, Lestallum's got cute, funny, sexy guys who I literally trust with my life going spare." Iris closed her eyes again. "Like I said, I'm surprised I didn't think of it sooner."

"Why did you think of it?" He asked, because now he was curious.

"I was out at the Adamantoise and I was having this incredibly boring conversation with a guy..."

"About beer?" He asked with a wry chuckle.

"Shush, not everything's about you."

"You're telling me how you decided you wanted to date me."

"Shush." She looked up at him, and frowned, and he smiled down at her. "It was actually about machine parts for the Emporium."

"Wow, that does sound boring."

"And I said to myself... 'you know what, this wouldn't be boring if I was having this conversation with Cor'... and then my brain decided that meant I should date you... and once it was thunk it couldn't be unthunk."

"I know that feeling." He answered, his fingers brushing against her jaw and he enjoyed the way she tilted her head just so, trying to steal the warmth or just another moment of touch.

"I spent a week or so trying to convince myself that it wasn't a great idea, and then another week trying to work up the courage to talk to you about it... and then you were out for two weeks and you came back looking all rugged and scruffy and hot."

"I'm beginning to question your taste in men," Cor answered.

"Well, I'm into you, so..." She shrugged, and then after a moment she scooted up so she could sit next to him, her legs folded under her and her body turned towards him. "Beer flight night at the Adamantoise was also pretty fun. I know we hang out a lot but that was really not... _us_ , so when I compared it it was actually a nice date."

"That was a terrible date." He'd talked Iris's ear off about beer, a topic she wasn't even interested in, and she'd pretty much hated everything he'd picked out - she liked _vodka_ now, for Six's sake.

"Well the bar's set really low then," she gave him a bright smile that made his heart skip for just a moment. "Nowhere to go but up, but... um, it wasn't _really_ a date."

Cor knew that, he hadn't even really thought of it in those terms, in a lot of ways he had been trying to distance himself, not get closer, so it was amusing that Iris had still felt it brought them together.

"Probably would have kissed you goodnight if it was..."

Oh. Cor looked over at Iris, and after a brief war with his inner conscience he reached out and touched her jaw, tugging her just a bit closer, her hand came to rest on his chest and their lips brushed, tentative, only for Iris to part her mouth just enough to lock their lips together and the soft touch to linger for just long enough to tantalize before her tongue snaked out for a moment, teasing at his lip and she pulled away.

It was sweet, and coy, and after a brief moment Cor reached up to brush his fingers against her jaw and tug her back in for them to kiss again, more soundly, and he felt the giddy rush of the ineffable chemistry that came from a well-matched partner, their tongues slid together for a brief moment, and then returned for more, and Iris's hand bunched his shirt together, holding on for dear life, before she finally parted, looking down at him, brown eyes wide and needy.

"That was nice," she whispered.

He gave a slight hum of agreement, his hands returning to brush along her cheeks and then along her throat before he finally drew them away and watched her ease back, sitting back on the couch with a groan.

"I'm going to be one bruise tomorrow," she complained, and Cor winced. "Busy day."

Cor had made a promise, however, and he tilted his head: "Breaking and entering to finish it off?"

Iris unlocked her phone and tilted it towards Cor. He saw a quick, two line conversation between Iris and Aranea.

_’I think I might break into your apartment.’_

_’Don't have sex on something that can't be washed.’_

Some part of him would absolutely never understand how Aranea and Ignis worked, but despite the occasional ups and downs it clearly did... "Well that's not breaking and entering anymore."

Still Iris disappeared into the back of the apartment and came back with a small carrier of what was likely toiletries. "Yes, but I'd feel bad even if they'd never know."

He wasn't quite certain how they ended up in that state, but Iris drew a bath and Cor settled outside the bathroom with a slightly cracked door and the two of them... talked about his mission. It was weird, and more than a bit strange, and he was definitely aware of the fact that Iris was naked not ten feet behind him, but... that was sort of how they worked.

"And when the hell were you going to tell me my hair got fucked up?" She almost yelled at him, about five minutes in.

He winced. "I thought you knew!" He shot back. "It was half your bangs."

"I am going to _murder_ Will."

"Well if you're allowed to think I look good after two weeks of little sleep and no shave, I'm going to tell you you're adorable with your bangs exploded off."

"That's almost romantic," Iris said, and Cor could actually hear the slight amusement mixed with a wistfulness. "And it's not _bangs_ it's 'hair', bangs are short, I have half bangs now. It's going to look wrong for a month, at least. Maybe if I part it weird..."

Cor heard her annoyed grumble.

"I'll dump his body in the Crag, but I'm not murdering him for fucking up your hair."

"That's definitely romantic."

He was pretty sure he was supposed to find that disturbing, but... well he was pretty unreasonable about Iris, so it was probably romantic, too.

Iris eventually exited the bathroom, clothes clinging to her body from the remaining water, her cheeks pink and flushed, and her legs very bare and toned and right at his eye level. After a few moments, he stood, and looked over to where Iris had tried to part her hair to hide the mess that was the hair at the right side of her forehead, and he settled for giving her a soft kiss there and then tilting his head.

They cut a slow path through the city, and when they reached the patio fire, Cor leaned in and pressed a kiss to the corner of her mouth. "Sleep well."

"Don't feel too guilty," she said, leaning in and giving him a quick hug. It was probably the first entirely serious thing she'd said all night, and he pressed his nose to her temple and kissed her again.

"Trying."

"Good." A few more steps and Iris turned away, heading to her apartment and Cor to his.

He couldn't deny he was still... struggling, but he could sort it out, hopefully.


	5. Chapter 5

.9.

Iris's back was still sore the next morning, and that meant she was up early and cooking porridge when Gladdy got up and she checked the very important topic of 'what did you think of Heather'. She quickly became woefully aware of the fact that despite having what seemed to be a nice conversation most of last night his opinion mostly boiled down to: 'she was cute, James who?'

Iris gave him a quick warning about playing his usual games with Heather which were promptly ignored so she arrived at work sore, grumpy, and poorly rested and fixed Cor with a slightly annoyed glower when she arrived and settled in at her desk.

"Something wrong?" He asked, voice weirdly tentative and when Iris looked at him again and realized he was... nervous.

"My brother is being slutty and my back hurts and my hair is messed up and I didn't sleep well."

He gave her a smile after that. "Ahh, well I'll make sure he knows I will make him suffer if he plays Heather."

"You're the best." She then frowned a little more. "You're kinda nervous today."

Cor gave an awkward smile in response. "Well the woman you're... dating coming to work looking like she's planning murder has a way of putting a man on edge."

"Oh..." She answered with a bright smile. "Nope, no complaints."

He relaxed after that, and they had a fairly normal day, training, reviewing intelligence, and planning the next effort to keep south Cleigne secure and settle the Tenebrae and Gralea refugees.

Towards the end of Cor's day be gave her a quick smile. "I'm going to go remind your brother that I can kick his ass. Markets?"

"Yeah, been looking forward to it. Meet me here in two?"

Iris gave in to the relatively new urge to go up to Cor and wrap her arms around his neck and pull him down into a soft kiss. The enthusiastic response emboldened her enough to slide her fingers through his hair before finally stepping away with a grin.

"You're going to make me look your brother in the ey-" He paused. "Did you tell Gladio?"

"Not yet," she answered, which seemed to relieve Cor, and she ran her hands along his chest for a moment. "Gladdy is a butt about my dating on a good day, so I figured it would be nice to have a little while to... sort it out?"

Cor gave her a soft kiss at her temple before he left. "Two hours."

Iris wrote a proposal for changing around hours and liberty time based on deployments and assignments that she and Cor had been considering, and then sent it to Dave and Cor for review. Ignis usually agreed with their ways of reorganizing the Hunters, but he did still like to review them. Just because they were the lone bastion of civilization on the edge of an apocalyptic hellscape didn't mean she got to avoid paperwork.

That killed enough time that she finished the day with a quick stretch to try to ease her aching back and Cor came in with a soft knock on the door and a smile.

"Well... on the bright side, Gladio seems to think I want to date Heather now."

Iris gave him a confused look that he knew only too well: 'how do you figure that' (it also doubled as 'what the hell is wrong with you' and 'you're weird' but context was everything).

"It means he'll back off, at least... and probably not notice the occasional slip up until you want to tell him you're dating me." Cor then held out an arm to usher her out, and they headed towards the market soon after that.

"I guess that makes sense," she said, although it didn't quite. She didn’t really understand why boys had these weird rules about dating girls, but she supposed it didn’t matter that much. After exiting HQ, they settled into a leisurely pace. "Is this...?" Iris frowned for a moment, and tried to sort out her thoughts. She wondered if she should have done her hair, or dressed up, or if she shouldn't go to too many stalls or chat with Chris or...

"Second thoughts?"

"No!" She turned to Cor and realized that she was probably overthinking it. "Just... should I...? It's a _date_..."

"Ahh..." Cor turned towards their path. "The burden of expectation. Well... I have no expectations. We're going to the market."

"Oh..." She thought about it like that and it seemed a bit less scary. "But shouldn't it be special?"

"At the risk of you repeating this to your brother and ruining my reputation forever: 'the company makes it special'."

Iris's head spun a bit at the sweetness even as she realized Cor was exactly right. It was Cor that made a lot of the everyday special, that was how she even realized that Cor was a great guy to think about dating.

"That's super sweet..." She nudged him with her shoulder. "And I'm not having second thoughts, I'm just... scared of messing this up."

She glanced over to see him smirking slightly, his eyes darting to her forehead.

"You were thinking of saying I have half my bangs blown off."

"I don't know what you're talking about."

The two of them made it the rest of the way to the market and Iris let herself relax more. This was Cor, she wasn't going to mess it up by not being perfect. They'd been to the market together before. Just... Cor and Iris, at the market, she could do this.

Of course, as was her way, once they were at the market she dove right in. It was hard not to still be excited by the place even years later. The dark had changed it, made it very different than the one she'd toured before the dark, but it was still amazing.

Despite Cor's assurances that there didn't really need to be anything special about the date, Iris still wanted to pay attention, make it feel like a date... her resolved lasted exactly two stalls when they discovered a new tea merchant with a tiny selection of _absolutely amazing_ tea. She was probably biased because it was _flower_ tea, but it was really nice, and she ended up with a few ounces each of chrysanthemum and chamomile tea, while Cor picked up a more traditional black tea.

"It smells so good..." She couldn't help but bury her nose in it and take a deep sniff, which just caused Cor to chuckle. "It's nice to feel like we're finally getting back some of the variety that made Lestallum... Lestallum..."

"I know how you feel," he answered. "Even things like... the houses, putting in windows, herbs... those mean little boxes have actually become homes." Iris glanced over to see him with a fond smile on his face. "I remember... when I was younger, the refugees that poured into Insomnia and were outcasts in their own kingdom, and instead it feels like a true city..."

There were still troubles, Iris knew that, and with more refugees coming in every day it would only get more difficult, but she knew what Cor meant. There were so many people so wrapped up in Lestallum society that it was impossible to maintain that distinction between ‘Lestallum’ and ‘not-Lestallum’ for long. "It's nice... I miss Insomnia, of course, but... I really do like it here."

A few somber moments passed before Iris found herself drawn to a spice stall, and then the smell of fresh cinnamon. "I could make... custard, or pie... oh man."

She wasn't certain how long they had spent at the market, but in the end she had cinnamon, basil, ginger, nutmeg, sea salt, darning thread, cheese cloth, soap, and a little jar with a seal to keep the cinnamon fresh, and a really old mystery novel and Iris considered herself set.

Weirdly, Iris felt like Cor had a good time too, they'd chattered constantly, and he'd picked up some things, some more darning thread, pepper, two books, and an old cassette of some opera.

On the way home, Iris had them swing by Chris's shop and she carried home the dozens of yards of cloth she'd ordered after having a few moments to croon over Chris's golden fabric offerings.

"What the hell are you making?" Cor asked, eventually holding out a hand and taking the overstuffed bag from her.

"Just... stuff. I sew a lot, clothes, things for Gladdy, and I'm going to make a few things for Ignis and Aranea's kid." She had a whole list. "It's not like Aranea's going to do it. They asked me to wait for... you know, a few months in, but I have to admit I'm pretty excited."

Cor headed home with her and helped her take the rest of her purchases to her apartment and then drop most of the fabric and thread off in her room. She spent a few minutes sorting through the purchases and making sure they were put away in the shelves she had for her sewing stuff. When she glanced over to Cor, she saw him taking a quick glance through her sparse bookshelf before he added her most recent purchase to it.

That was around when Iris realized that she was alone in her room with Cor. Cor... who she was dating, and liked kissing. When she met his eyes, he gave her a warm, and very cute, smile.

"Um..." She took a step and then reached out to curl her fingers into his shirt. "I... had a nice time."

"I did too," Cor answered, and he reached out to run his fingers along her hip, making Iris take a step forward, and their bodies pull closer together. After a long moment, she brushed a soft kiss to his lips. "I want to do this right, Iris."

"I... me too. I don't... really know what that means, but the idea of screwing this up... it scares me." This was _Cor_ , one of her best friends, and she knew she cared for him, knew he was a perfect fit... but Ignis and Aranea were pretty perfect too and they were huffing at each other like five year olds and that terrified her.

"And I'm here and a part of me is waiting for you to come to your senses," he said.

"Cor..." She sighed, and leaned into him, wrapping her arms around him and nuzzling into his chest. "It's not like I just woke up yesterday and decided I wanted to date you. I know you've said I'm young, that I have plenty of time to figure out what I want from a guy, right?"

"Yes." His fingers reached up to her head and tangled there, threading through her hair and pressing his nose to the crown of her head.

She tilted her head, pressed her cheek to his chest so he could hear her and she could hear his heart hammering just a little too fast. "I want someone who... wants to look out for me, but knows I can take care of myself, someone who knows that Lestallum and Lucis come first and they come after but that's alright, someone who... I can shop with and pout at and cry on and he still wants to stick around, and someone who makes me melt when he smiles and makes me laugh when I'm down..." Cor's heart was racing, she could hear it, and she chuckled just a bit before she moved her head back so she could nuzzle. "So, if that's not you, you've been doing a hell of a job fooling me for years. But I know I'm young and I know I'm not very experienced in dating and I'm terrified I'll ruin us but I'm even more terrified to not tell you how I feel. And maybe I'm a little terrified that _you'll_ come to _your_ senses, mister."

That brought rumbling chuckle to his chest and Iris squeezed tight, only for him to peel back a bit and look at her before he glanced around. "Where the hell do you sit?"

She rolled her eyes before dragging down the top of the shelf unit that had her bed tucked up against the wall. "There's no space, girl's gotta make do, right?"

He did tug her towards the bed, letting them sit on the edge of it, and Iris tucked herself up a little, maybe feeling a bit vulnerable, but knowing that they really did need to say something other than 'I like you' and call it a day.

"I've been trying to come to my senses for months, Iris." It probably could have been hurtful, but instead he just sounded really fond, and warm. She immediately knew what he meant. "There's no avoiding the fact I've known you for years, that there's more than a few years between us, that a man my age really shouldn't..."

Iris wanted to tell him that it was alright, but she knew there was a difference there, that it was going to cause issues. She'd thought about it, she'd made lists even, but that just meant she couldn't say Cor was wrong. He was right, and maybe she was being selfish for asking him to ignore all of that just so she could have what she wanted.

"But... you're beautiful and strong, you took a weight that should have rightly broken you and you broke it over your knee, you bring light and hope to hundreds of thousands of people and... I'm selfish and I want to have a tiny piece of that for myself."

Iris felt wetness slide down her cheeks, and she realized she was crying just a little bit. Cor could be so... solid, sometimes, a stone, and she knew that and she liked that but sometimes he was just like this, open and earnest, and it was almost too much. "Please don't come to your senses any time soon," she begged him.

"As long as you don't either," he answered in response.

After a few moments he reached out, and Iris almost leaped at him, just needed to hug him and hold on, and she clung to him for a moment, just holding on and holding on and holding on... "You know you're great, right?" She needed him to know that, because he was.

"You too."

They traded a few kisses, nothing heated, although Iris found she really, really wanted to ruck up Cor's shirt and touch every inch of him, but it stayed light, better and worse all at once. She knew how easy it could be to just ignore the world sometimes, to just kiss and make out and have it be fine...

"I wish we could just stay like this."

Cor didn't say what she already knew, that they couldn't just stay like this, that there was a hell of a lot to do. That was one thing she loved; even though she knew she had occasionally childish wants, she also knew they were childish and Cor never chastised her or told her she was wrong, just knew that she understood what was practical and what wasn't.

They talked a bit more, not much, but Iris knew that just like everything else this little nascent relationship would need to fill in the gaps, would need to fit in between everything else that already existed. They'd date when they could, kiss when they could, and perhaps their smiles were a little brighter at each other every morning but not a lot changed straight away.

Whoever was second into work always brought tea, they made a point of eating lunch together, and they went out on something that resembled a date at least every three or four days.

A few weeks into their, sweet, comfortable, holding-pattern dating, their sort-of-date was drinks at the Adamantoise.

Heather gave them a nod when Cor waved, and Iris knew that she would come bearing a daiquiri and a beer without being asked.

"Please tell me that's not my brother over at the bar bugging you at work," Iris said when Heather arrived and deposited their drinks.

"Sorry to disappoint," she answered. "He's... been in a few times in the last three weeks."

Iris was glad she had already made sure Heather was aware of the fact that her brother was a player before their dinner a few weeks ago, so she didn't need to be told to keep Gladdy at arm's length, but Iris had to admit she was a little weirded out by the fact that her brother apparently had made a habit of visiting Heather at work and presumably talking to her.

"But the shower's got decent water pressure again and James has a bed frame instead of just a mattress so..." She shrugged. "Your brother is a confusing guy."

Heather headed off and Iris took a long sip of her drink as she tried to sort out what the hell to make of Gladdy's behavior. "Do you think he actually likes her?"

"Sometimes men just enjoy the chase," Cor answered, taking a long drink of his beer and watching Gladdy out of the corner of his eye.

"And then get bored when they catch her?" Iris asked, wondering if she was boring or... this whole 'doing it right' thing was confusing as hell for her.

Cor made an agreeing noise, and then glanced over to her and sighed, obviously catching at least part of what was going on in her head. He was good at that... sometimes.

"And sometimes he catches her and has no damn idea what to do," Cor answered.

Iris pouted just a little bit because... it had been weeks, and they'd kissed a good bit, but she'd definitely been deep into the 'make out with a guy' part of the relationship by now with other guys. Cor, who she liked _more_ she was having so much _less_ of a physical relationship with, and she supposed it was balanced out with way more fun and laughter but Iris could admit she really, really did like guys and orgasms.

"Hey," he answered. "I... haven't done this in a while, and I know of at least a half-dozen people, living and dead, who would happily team up to make my life miserable if I hurt you. I'd join them."

It wasn't the first time he'd talked about that, and Iris knew he was working on it but she just... "What can we do that will help you... be alright with this?" She knew that Cor still had a lot of guilt about how he felt, even after Iris had told him she cared. He _seemed_ to be getting better about it, but it was starting to make her worried that even though Cor called her beautiful he wasn't really... into her.

"I'm more comfortable," Cor said, and that did seem to be true. "I know you care for me, and even though I do sometimes worry I'm taking advantage, I do care for you."

"It..." Iris bit her lip, trying to figure out how to say what she was feeling. Communication... that was a big deal, because it seemed to be a huge thing that just didn't work with other people. "I want more... physically," she said, even though she was a bit scared to say it. She knew she was... eager, that always seemed to be something guys said, and Aranea and Gladdy had both assured her there was nothing wrong with wanting to be with someone, but there was still a small part of her that was embarrassed by it. "Do you?"

"Six, of course I do, Iris," he answered immediately. That was gratifying at least, the lack of hesitation.

"And I figure there's... doing it right, and then there's not doing it at all and then I'm just horny and worried you're not that attracted to me..."

Cor pinched the bridge of his nose, and he seemed to be angry with himself, or bemused, sometimes it was hard to tell, and when he finally looked up at her again she saw that he at least looked a little sad. "Iris, I'm... very attracted to you. It's just very easy to worry about pushing you into something you don't want yet."

"What if I do, though?" She getting to the point where kisses and light touches were almost frustrating, like... cold showers and masturbating while she groaned into her pillow at home frustrating. "I mean I know I'm not very experienced, but I've got a pretty decent list of things I want to do with you."

"A list?" Cor... he definitely looked a little amused. "Iris I'm... a list?!"

"Well not an actual list... I'm pretty sure I'd die of embarrassment if Gladdy read it..."

She bit her lip and looked at Cor, nervous, because she didn't want Cor to... she didn't know what she wanted. Cor had never been rude about her dating other guys, he always seemed happy when she was happy and more than willing to come to her defense if she wanted. Some guys had made comments about her seeing too many guys...

"If you have a list, then we should work on that," Cor said, a little bemused, but she could hear the seriousness. "At least then I'll know you're comfortable."

"Really?" Iris asked, she took a quick sip of her drink, almost... abuzz, she was having a hard time thinking about what she'd even want to do first... mostly she wanted to see Cor naked, that was item number one, after that it was just a fairly wide variety of things to do that all boiled down to 'have orgasms'.

"I haven't really dated in years," he confessed a moment later, although Iris knew that. "Since before the dark. It's hard to even know what would be a good pace even if I wasn't concerned about pushing you."

"Alright, we'll just... do what I'd like?"

"With only slight trepidation about what I'm agreeing to, yes."

"It's pretty innocuous, really," Iris assured him. "I mean item one is pretty inflexible because I'd really like to be naked with you, but I was thinking blow jobs would be a really good place to go from there."

Cor took a long, and very slow and deliberate drink of his beer after that, and Iris could very much see he was flushed from what she'd said. She knew she'd never... gossiped with him, that was reserved for Aranea or Heather or a few of the girls from the Plant, but Aranea had always encouraged her to own what she wanted and get that out of whatever she did with a guy. 'Life's too short to put up with bad sex'.

"I haven't had sex yet," she said after that. "I'm not really in a rush to, either, not because I'm particularly worried about not being a virgin, but just because it seems like it would be a lot more fun if you were already really comfortable with being with someone." She took another sip of her drink, it was getting a little melted and the vodka flavor was a lot more obvious and she frowned at it, but took another drink. "Is that alright?"

Cor cleared his throat and put his beer down, and Iris thought he looked a little confused, or shell-shocked, which wasn't really a look she was used to on him, so she was a little concerned. "That's fine," he said, almost blurted.

Iris nodded, pretty happy with the outcome. She probably should have talked about it sooner... thinking about it, it sounded a lot like what she and Cor had talked about months ago, letting things build up until they were something that needed to get fought over. "Is everything alright?" She asked, finally. "You seem a bit... out of sorts."

"Iris, I... honestly... I hadn't thought you'd be as comfortable with what you wanted from the physical part of a relationship."

"Why?" She asked, a bit confused. "Aranea says one of the most important parts of growing up is learning what you like and how to get it, so I did that. I felt like talking about things like how much time we should spend together or apart or whether or not I thought I'd be interested in kids soon was way more difficult." Those were questions she never had really bothered with. None of the guys she'd dated had been someone she really wanted around for a long time, just someone to have fun with.

Cor, on the other hand, was important, he was a guy she already cared about and wanted to have be around, but she liked having time with Gladdy, Aranea, Ignis, Heather, Holly, Prompto, Talcott, lots of people, and she needed quiet sewing time, so figuring all of that out seemed way more complicated to her than being with Cor.

"I stand corrected," he answered, smiling now. "How about this: day after tomorrow you can come over and enjoy one of the many exciting recipes I've learned in my years of bachelorhood and then we'll... see where the evening takes us."

Iris beamed. "No luncheon meat."

"I wouldn't dream of it."

They spent the rest of their date making fun of Gladdy trying to get Heather's attention with his stupid lack of shirt, because it was pretty funny to watch Gladdy not get what he wanted sometimes when it came to girls.

It also meant Iris got a scorching good night kiss because they knew Gladdy wouldn't be home for a little bit when Cor walked her home.

Things were looking up.

*

Cor could admit he was a bit nervous about the idea of an evening with Iris. It was unusual for him to put much concern on a night together with a woman, but making sure Iris was happy was a priority.

The truth was it was more and more impossible for him to convince himself he wasn't already deeply in love with Iris. The object of his affections was currently drinking some of her chrysanthemum tea and reading reports, hair still wet from a quick shower after practice.

She finished up with her reading and then glanced over to him and gave him a smile.

"Oh!" She grabbed her bag and pulled out a small yellow ball of Six knew what and gave it a gentle toss over towards him.

He caught it, and took a look, turning the fluffy monstrosity over in his hands. It was actually really well done, a stuffed chocobo with beak, wings, tail, and legs looking fairly accurate for a palm sized imitation. "Looks great," he said. "Really great. You did this yesterday?"

"Yeah, had to make up the pattern too which was a nightmare." Cor nodded, completely ignorant about the process. He darned his own socks, and could patch a tear in a shirt or pants, but that was about the end of his sewing knowledge. "Chris said if I wanted to make more he'd resell them for me... might be nice. I'm not sure how many kids there are floating around right now."

Cor shrugged. "I don't think we've had a census for over six months." And after he said that he realized how ridiculous it was that they hadn’t. He’d need to send that thought to Ignis. The birth rate was low, very low, but there were still hundreds of kids born despite that. Hundreds of thousands of people all crammed together in the dark would make that happen no matter the state of the world. "Enough that if Chris thinks he can sell them, he probably can."

"Hmmm... give up the Hunter lifestyle and become a seamstress..." she said, looking over at him and winking. "Sounds boring."

"I'd hope so," he answered, looking over to where she looked to be doodling at the moment. "I don't want to do this without you."

The shy and happy smile was more than worth it, and he sent the chocobo flying back to her and she stuffed it back in her bag. "Still might be fun on off days, I like sewing and I don't always have a project."

They hit up Surgate's for lunch, and Cor found himself looking over a few more sketches for a moogle pillow and something apparently called a 'romper'.

"Your brother is lucky you like clothing him," Cor said, chuckling as he took a bite of soup.

"I'm the best, yup." Iris grinned at him.

"No arguments from me."

She flushed just a little and smiled down into her lunch, and they returned to discussing Iris's grand sewing plans. A quiet afternoon of patrolling and checking in with the outskirts followed, and Cor left Iris to finish up their day with a soft kiss at her throat.

"Your place?" She asked, and he saw her look at him with a very obvious flash of want that made him swallow.

He nodded, and then let himself give in to the urge to kiss Iris again, to take the back of her head and tilt it just so and he enjoyed the very needy way she moaned in response and opened her mouth, leaving them to tangle briefly before he pulled away and smiled at the slight pout on her lips. "My place."

She smiled as he left, and Cor headed to the market to grab some things he needed before he went home and peeled off his jacket, getting started in the kitchen. As much as he liked to joke about his years of bachelorhood, he had used the time to learn how to make more than a few things to eat. Today he'd decided on chickatrice in mushroom and wine sauce.

The simple recipe gave him a chance to reflect, and that was probably for the best. Ever since Iris had asked him to consider a relationship he'd found himself worried that he was pushing her, urging her into something she wasn't ready for, and she constantly surprised him with how much she defied his expectations of her wants and needs.

One of the things that had lingered in his mind was the fact that he _did_ tend to date woman roughly his own age, maybe a decade younger at the most. They were largely... women settled into careers, interested in marriage, kids, settling down... and Cor wasn't opposed to those things in a general way, but he'd never felt his life was in a place to allow those things. His career, by its very nature, had been scattered and busy and not capable of accommodating someone else. Now he had an apartment that he slept in probably ten months out of the year, maybe nine if he was very busy, he had a job that was largely focused in one place, and he had a girlfriend who seemed... assured in what she wanted.

He still worried about tying her down, robbing her of choices, but Iris seemed completely incapable of letting him worry about it for long. He grabbed a quick shower and shave, and then checked the bing from his phone that said Iris was on her way, which meant he actually started to cook dinner, ending somewhere near half done when Iris arrived and distracted him for at least a minute with kisses and wandering hands.

A keen mind for multitasking was the only reason the chickatrice didn't burn, and after that he gave her a firm kiss and told her to take her distractions elsewhere.

The pout from the couch was definitely worth it.

She headed over to the dining table and eventually sat there, taking the shallow glass of wine and drinking a sip while Cor brought over their plates. They spent a few minutes going over the little that had happened since Cor left work and Cor mentioned a little gossip from the store, nothing particularly interesting, but one of the benefits and problems with dating someone you spent so much time with was that you had to learn to appreciate the companionable silences as much as the chatter.

"I'm disappointed," Iris said, finishing up her last bite of dinner. "I was promised bachelor food and this was pretty damn good. You've been holding out on me."

"You knew I could cook," he answered. "I just... would much rather appreciate your cooking."

She huffed lightly, and then made to clean up the plates only for Cor to take them first and head over to the kitchen and start the dishes. Iris followed after him and shamelessly ran her hands up Cor's chest, teasing there and rubbing down his sides, nose buried in his back. "Can I distract you now?"

He gave a little agreeable hum and Iris's hands skated low enough to touch his hips and she tugged him back just a bit, pressing her body along his back. She then slid her hands up, fingers under his shirt and she relaxed there, fingers digging lightly against his stomach. Cor gave into the sensation, enjoying the feeling of Iris's body against his back, her breasts the most obvious, but he felt her gentle nuzzling as well, holding him tight, distracting him.

When he finished the dishes, he turned around and Iris quickly found herself a tangled perch of arms and legs, clinging to him for dear life as she kissed him, hard and needy. The trip to his bedroom was slow, fraught with kisses and heated touches, and he mourned the loss of Iris's body against his as he set her at the foot of his bed.

Just when he thought he might have a moment to catch his breath, Iris reached out and made purposeful work of the button of his slacks, and then began to peel down the fly. A brief moment of nerves struck, and he pushed it down, leaning in to tug at the shirt she was wearing. For a moment he stood there, his pants at his ankles and Iris's shirt tangled in her hair and arms, and she giggled, causing Cor to answer with his own smile. She stood after that, stripping off Cor's shirt and leaving him able to unbutton her own shorts, after a few fumbles, the two of them ended up stripped down to their underwear and Iris wasted no time in taking him by the wrist and tugging him so that he laid down on the bed and she scrambled so she pressed atop him, her lips quickly finding a home against his neck and collar.

"Super hot," she said, causing him to flush just a bit as her eyes hungrily raked over him. "Do you know how crazy you make me when all I get it that little peek of skin?" She leaned in and pressed a kiss to his chest, just below his collarbones, and then added a little nip just after.

"Oh?" He asked, because he honestly didn't think much about it, but Iris clearly did.

"Super crazy, makes me want to just hike up your shirt and lick you." She made her point by continuing to nuzzle downward, kissing at his nipples, tongue sliding lower.

"By all means," he answered, and she continued her trail of kisses. A few moments later, he felt her hand slide down to his boxers and cup him there. "Later."

He eased her hand away and then flipped her onto her back, looking down at her and savoring the freedom to just admire her. She pouted.

"What?" He asked, kissing her nose in response.

"Want to see you."

Cor allowed himself a moment of shyness before he climbed off the bed and shucked his boxers. He was unused to showing off his body, but the hungry look in Iris's eyes made him slightly reconsider his perspective.

"Better?"

She nodded, eyes drinking him in.

"Your turn," he said, and she hiked up her hips, urging him to strip down black panties and then he took a few fumbled moments to unhook her bra.

Cor took his time after that, drinking her in, marveling at strong, trim arms, stomach and legs. Her breasts were modest, and went perfectly with her lean body, and he leaned in to kiss between her breasts and then offered each one attention.

"You're beautiful," he said. "Every bit of you."

He took his time after that, kissing her, touching, mapping her body and learning every inch of her. She made a delightfully frustrated groan as he brought his fingers down to tease at her hips, and brushing at her inner thighs, but he was most gratified by the needy way she panted his name when he urged her to drape her legs over his shoulders. That settled, he began the task of pressing his lips to her, using his tongue and mouth against her opening to tease and touch. She was enthusiastic, and vocal, and absolutely shameless about it, and Cor was already ridiculously hard just from the _sounds_ and the taste of her on his lips.

Iris’s hands grabbed at his hair, trying to find some sort of purchase and having none, and Cor reached up to run his hand along her side and he caught her fingers, twining them together as Iris held on for dear life. Her grip didn’t slacken until she finished riding out her orgasm and Cor drew back, easing her down onto her back and pressing a gentle kiss to her thigh.

When he glanced back to her, he saw her face, lax and curled in a sultry smile. "You're good at that."

He answered with a self-satisfied smile. "I love an appreciative audience."

She snorted and shoved his shoulder so he rolled onto his back, grabbing at her to pull her with him, and she went, a few moments later meeting his lips with a kiss and then happily chased after the taste of herself on his mouth before she broke away and went back to her original mission of kissing along down his throat and further.

A small part of Cor worried that Iris simply thought that she needed to do this, that she was pushing herself to do more than she was comfortable with, but the concern was immediately dispelled by the enthusiasm Iris brought to driving Cor completely and totally insane with her mouth.

Cor brought his hand down to touch her hair, brushing it to the side and watching as she worked him with hand and mouth, those same noises she’d made before returned, only now her mouth was on him and he could feel every moan.

He spent embarrassingly quickly, and his gentlemanly attempts to not just spill in her mouth went completely ignored as Iris happily swallowed his seed and left him with a farewell lick across his tip before she groaned and curled against his side.

"Alright?" She asked, probably some time later, and Cor grabbed her with his free arm and tugged her close.

"Amazing." His hand found a comfortable position, running his fingers down along her back and back up again. "I..." He didn't even know what to say, he was lax and content and he had a beautiful woman he cared for... loved... in his arms. "Looking forward to the rest of that list..." He decided, finally.

Iris giggled, curling tighter against him. "I'm glad," she said, and Cor pulled her closer, pressing a firm kiss to the crown of her head, Iris shifting to pin herself to his side. "I just really like... this, being close with someone like this, with you..."

"I understand," he said, his fingers tangling in her hair after that, enjoying the feel of the soft strands between his fingers. "I... I'm not an effusive person."

"I know." Iris rested her head on his chest and began to run her hands there, just light and comfortable, lazy... "I don't expect you to be. I've known you for years. Just... this is good."

"I don't want you to feel... like I don't care."

"Cor," she sighed. "I... I know you're not going to be squishy and write me poems or something. I always know you care. I _don't_ always know you... want me."

"I do." Cor could say that without reservations, and what little doubt he had that they might not fit well in bed had been thoroughly disabused in the last hours. "It's hard for me to show. I can admit that. I spent a long time pushing down those thoughts... months, a part of me still feels like I shouldn't..."

The guilt was fading, the self-loathing that had begun when he realized that he had fallen for a woman far too young for him was subsiding, and he certainly had a hard time being upset with himself when Iris looked at him like that, but he hadn't yet shaken the rest of it off.

"But I'll try."

"Good." Iris then stretched, her lean body sliding against his and he didn't resist the urge to reach out and take her by the butt and pull her to straddle him. "... Hi." She laughed, probably at herself, and then took her opportunity to run her hands over his chest, lightly pinning him down.

Cor happily spent the next hour running his hands over Iris and watching her squirm at the attention before he slipped his fingers inside of her to bring her off again while she moaned into his mouth.

Iris lazily nuzzling at his throat after that, content and tired.

"Do I get to wake up next to you tomorrow?" He asked.

"Yeah," she brought her lips up to his ear and then nipped lightly. "All yours."

It took a few tries to get comfortable, a usual failing of beds and the human body, before Iris settled in at his side, using his chest as a pillow and his arm curled along her back. Cor fell asleep remarkably easily, and the gentle touch of fingers along his arm woke him just before his first alarm. He traded a lazy kiss with Iris before she rolled out of bed.

"Cya in a few hours," she said, and he nodded before curling into the spot Iris had vacated, dozing to the scent of her hair.

He was fairly certain he was totally, irredeemably, in love.

The sleepy, happy, and self-satisfied smile that greeted him when he arrived at work three hours later suggested that maybe, just maybe, Iris felt the same. They had their usual lunch, and a fairly typical midafternoon, but lazy and happy was never a state that seemed meant to be for long, however.

"Prompto just called," Iris said, getting off the phone an hour after lunchtime. "There's been a huge uptick in Giant activity over near Hammerhead and I think it might be a good idea to take a quick scouting peek over at Insomnia..."

Cor winced. He didn't like that one bit, and he knew exactly what was coming.

"I'm going to take a small posse and head on over," she continued, saying exactly what he'd known she would. "Will be... probably at least two or three weeks, I'd think."

Iris waited, and Cor was a bit surprised that she seemed to be waiting for his approval. It wasn't something she normally felt the need to do. "That's the best course. Be careful."

She let out a breath, and Cor realized it was relief... and then he remembered that her first boyfriend... or whatever he'd been, had dumped her the second she needed to leave town for a few days.

"You really thought I was going to tell you you couldn't leave or that I wouldn't wait for you to get back?" He asked.

"No... but that doesn't mean I'm not glad you didn't..."

"Fair." He stood from the desk and went over to where she was standing, wrapping her up in a tight hug and then kissing the crown of her head. "I..." Timing and anything else be damned, he pulled her tight and melted into her returned hug. "I love you, and I'll always wait for you..."

When he pulled away, Iris was looking up at him with wet eyes, smiling. "I... same. I love you, too... you doofus." She tugged him in and they shared a quick kiss before she pulled away with a sigh. "I better get going, or... I better get packing, can you scrape me up some guys?"

"Will do," he answered. He put in with Dave for a few men, and then called on the most recent set of reserves who requested deployment duties, before he visited Monica at the store to pack together the pile of rations that would have to make do for a dozen men for three weeks.

Iris hadn't come back yet, and only half of the men had mustered, so he made a quick stop at the market to pick up two dozen bags of chrysanthemum tea, and even paid the exorbitant premium for the privilege of little cloth bags. He knew a tea diffuser was hardly going to be in a deployment kit.

The HQ was filled with men after he returned, and Iris was buzzing around, pointing and ordering and getting things ready, rations were packed, water purification kits checked, radios checked, a wagon filled with the Hammerhead supplies scheduled to go out in two weeks was mustered to as much completeness as it was able, and Cor gave each man and woman a customary good luck and godspeed.

Iris's farewell was no different than the others, except he handed over the small pack, which she took without comment. "Report when you can... and think of me."

She gave him a little smile, slightly bashful, but her face straightened before she turned around to head towards the assembled men, ordering them to move out.

Cor missed her almost immediately. He wasn't surprised by that, but it was more painful than he had originally anticipated. It was exceedingly rare that he was the one sitting at home sending off a woman he cared for, so the reversal of his usual position was distressing to say the least.

Gladio visited him in the office a few hours later, leaving Cor to wonder if he was going to be on the receiving end of a speech about dating his sister only to find he seemed completely unaware of any reason for Cor to be stressed about her deployment and instead was concerned about...

"So, are you actually going to make a move on Heather?" Gladio asked for his opening gambit, making Cor stare at him slightly for a moment before he remembered that Gladio had taken his 'don't break her heart' as evidence of Cor's own interest in her.

"Gladio," Cor pinched the bridge of his nose and sighed. He did _not_ want to deal with Gladio's romantic issues while he was missing Iris. Still... "I'm not interested in Heather."

"But..."

"She's a friend who I care about." Somehow Cor was getting the impression that Gladio had a slight difficulty with the concept 'woman I like to spend time with but don't want to sleep with', but that was hardly news. "Which is why... I don't want you pulling your usual shit with her."

Gladio gave an annoyed glower in response, with all the dignity of a teenager who'd been told to finish his vegetables. He did recover a few moments later, at least. "I do... how the hell do you know?"

"Know what?"

"If she's the one?"

Not a question he'd particularly expected from Gladio, probably a decent start all told... "I don't think it's any one thing," Cor said after a few moments to consider. How had he known that he wanted to be with Iris? "You... fit, and the parts where you don't fit together fit in their own way. You respect her, and you know she has a whole life that's not about you, but you'd really like her to make some space for you, and you want to do the same in return. Your priorities and sensibilities are in about the same place, and you have to be able to agree to disagree and mean it..." He shrugged after that and leaned back. "It's not an easy question."

Gladio was looking at him like he'd never seen him before. It was actually a look he recognized from soon after Gladio had completed his Trial with Gilgamesh and had perhaps come to see Cor as a more complicated person than he'd originally thought. "Cor Leonis, closet romantic..."

"I'm capable of love and romance," he answered, a bit annoyed that Gladio would think otherwise. "It just... has to fall in line with the rest of my life, and it's rare that it can."

Rare enough that he was going to treasure Iris for as long as she deigned to love him.

"Come on," he said. "Adamantoise, have a drink, and figure out what it's going to take for you to figure it out. If you two give it a try and it doesn't work out, that's life, but if you go in not expecting to be around in a month..."

"Right, I get it," Gladio answered, and it sounded like he did, not his usual 'shut up, Cor' lip service answer. "It's just hard to know right _now_." He got up though, and Cor followed a moment after. "Why are you so protective of her?"

Cor grabbed his jacket and tilted his head and then locked up the office as they wandered towards the Adamantoise.

"You remember... Walt Higgins?" Cor asked.

"Sure," Gladio answered. "He was the last Crownsguard casualty against the Niffs before the war cooled a year or so before the treaty, served alongside some of the Kingsglaive, right?"

Cor nodded. "Heather's his widow."

"... Oh."

"So, I've always spent a good bit of time helping with the Widows and Orphans funds for the Crownsguard. Pension usually took care of them well enough, but I would look in on them just to make sure they didn't need anything that a paycheck couldn't fix. Made sure her son wasn't getting into trouble," Cor continued, and he closed his eyes for a moment, thinking about it.

Heather was one of the few who'd made it to Lestallum alive, and a lot of the Hunters who'd been lost since the dark didn't have family... but that didn't mean they didn't hurt. It was something he and Dave shared in common, and something they commiserated about over drinks from time to time.

"I get why Iris was pretty pissed I couldn't remember her son's name after that first dinner..." Gladio said, wincing.

"What's her son's name?"

"James."

"And I'll warn you now, he's going to be a brat if you try to date Heather," Cor said, the two of them making quick work of the road to the bar and then settling in, Cor gave Heather a wave, as did Gladio. "She ran through a share of duds back before Insomnia fell, and James might not remember his dad, but he does know a shitty one when he meets them."

"Not your usual Amicitia, Marshal," Heather greeted him with a smile and his usual beer.

"I traded down," Cor answered. "Best I could do for the evening."

Heather answered with a little snort and waited for Gladio's order before she headed off. "I dunno, he seems well enough..." And she left the two of them with a wink at Gladio and Cor shook his head.

"No accounting for taste," he said, and Gladio took the obvious barb in good spirits, grinning from ear to ear.

They had a bit more back and forth, nothing revelatory, but it sounded like Gladio would at least not be tragic if he chose to give it a try with Heather. Eventually, Gladio ditched Cor to go sit near the bar and get a few more chances to chat of Heather.

"So, where is your darling Captain?" Heather asked, bringing him his last for the evening and closing him out.

"Mission," Cor answered. "Left this afternoon."

"Bet you're missing her already," she said, and Cor found himself nodding before he gave her an appraising gaze, only for Heather to answer with a defiant one of her own. "Might not be a familiar look on you, but it's easy to guess. She know?"

"Yeah..." His smile probably said the rest. "That obvious?"

"Nah, only for your bartender," she assured him. "That and she mentioned a particularly hopeless crush a few months ago..."

Cor looked at her, startled, he’d had no idea Heather had known, and now he found himself worried she would judge him harshly for it.

"I’d tell you to treat her right, but you already know." Heather shrugged.

Cor's phone chimed a few moments later and he drew it out. "This is probably her," he said. "Always sends me an update when she hits a safe haven."

"I'll leave you to it, then..." Heather paused, and Cor watched her look a bit nervous for a moment. "About Gladio...?"

"Blessing's a strong word," Cor said a moment later. "But he... maybe."

"Best you can do in this world sometimes," Heather answered, making his chits disappear and giving him a nod before she headed off.

Cor pulled out his phone and swiped.

_’Thanks for the tea, so good. <3 Made it to Lingaug with no trouble, just settling in for a sleep. Probably head off to Alstor tomorrow and then a long day the next. There's more than a few nasties out, however, and we'll trim down the bombs and imps if we can. They're popping up too much.’_

He took a few moments to consider his answer. _’You know best.’_ And then a few seconds later he called himself a sap and added: _’Miss you.’_

_’Miss you, too.’_

It wasn't unusual for Iris to send a picture or two from wherever she was, so the message itself wasn't a surprise, what was was the nature of the picture. Iris half stripped of her flak vest, the light undershirt that went below it hiked up to show just a bit of skin and the waistband of her pants, and an unmistakable come hither in her eyes. The picture wasn't lewd, but it was obviously meant to tease...

_’I'm at the bar!’_

_’Then go home and think about me, at least one of us should have a fun evening.’_

Iris... was telling him to go home and masturbate to a picture of her. He finished the rest of his beer in one quick gulp and decided to do exactly that. He doubted Iris knew, but that was a line he'd... not crossed, certainly not before he'd found out she cared for him, but even after. The permission was oddly liberating.

Sometimes Iris sent a report with nothing but facts, and if there was a selfie it was not nearly as evocative as the first one had been, other times Cor was offered a usually absent flash of skin or a more suggestive pose or look. It kept him on his toes.

A buzz woke him early a few mornings later: _’Hammerhead today. I can't wait for the peace and privacy!’_

He glanced down at himself, Crownsguard t-shirts, tented boxers, and a messy scruff he should have shaved off two days ago. He was fairly certain the picture he took was 'sleepy' not 'sultry', mimicking a similar pose to the first one Iris had sent, but he knew if he had longer to think better of it he wouldn't have sent anything at all.

_’Have some fun when you get there.’_

The _’ <3’_ that came in immediate response was worth it, and he dozed off waking later to Iris's assurance that she'd 'had fun'. And perhaps it was less than erotic, but he reminded her to be safe... and that he loved her, and went to start his day.

*

Iris and Prompto spent almost three weeks clearing the area of dozens of nasties, and a solid four days trying to get closer to Insomnia and eventually managing to get a few pictures of the center of the city before they snuck back out.

The multi-day trip back left her buzzing and a little irritated. She and Cor had been back and forth almost every day, but that didn't mean it was the same as getting to see him.

She arrived around the mid afternoon, and fought with the urge to shower or just go and see Cor before she finally decided that she was gross and in desperate need of a shower and she was freshly washed and changed when she found Cor looking... irritated?

Iris felt a brief moment of worry before he saw her and smiled.

"Lock the door," he said, voice tight.

Oh... _Oh_! She turned around and locked the door in a flash before she headed over to him and found herself scooped up in two hands. Cor used his body weight and one hand to pin her to the nearest wall and Iris moaned into his mouth as he kissed her.

Cor spent at least an hour making it abundantly clear exactly how much he'd missed her. By the end, Iris was fairly certain there was an incriminating stain on at least one state document, she was _completely_ certain she was going to love getting fucked against a wall, she would never be able to look at that desk the same way again, and she needed another shower.

"So..." She ran her hands through Cor's hair and kissed that permanently furrowed brow. "You missed me?"

He answered with a soft smile and a light kiss to her jaw. "Terribly."

Another _very cold_ shower, and a relocation away from the desk meant she could actually focus on what she was supposed to after a post mission, and they talked about the actual business of the last month of work against the daemons.

Iris added Prompto’s pictures to the ever growing collection of ‘shit Ignis and Talcott had gathered from the Royal Tombs’ that seemed to confirm the _possibility_ that Ardyn Izunia was some sort of Lucis Caelum descendant. It made a lot of the weirdness surrounding the man make a twisted sense, but they still didn’t have any real answers.

After they finished the prolonged exchanging of intelligence, they returned to something a bit like their usual day... with a bit more furtive glances than usual.

"Want me to cook dinner?" He asked, later in the day. "I imagine you're exhausted."

"Did Gladdy starve while I was away?"

"He seems to have acquired a preference for attempting to cook for a certain waitress in our mutual acquaintance," Cor answered, and Iris felt her eyes grow wide at that as she realized what Cor meant.

"Heather and Gladdy!?"

"Two whole weeks, I marked my calendar."

"Did he throw an anniversary dinner?" Iris asked, absolutely stunned that her brother had apparently actually... "Wow... and he's... _dating_ her?"

Cor chuckled at her absolute confusion. "He even asked if I'd be willing to babysit next week when Heather has a day off so they can have an 'evening out'."

"I think I need to lay down. I might be coming down with something, hallucinating, that sort of thing."

"And while a gentleman doesn't kiss and tell... Heather informed me two days ago that Gladio hasn't... stayed over for the evening yet." Cor smiled again at her incredulous response. "She hasn't decided if she's impressed or not yet, but I'd be surprised if that lasts much longer."

"Holy shit," Iris said, finally recovering from the terrifying news. "Well... if I don't have to worry about feeding Gladdy tonight, yeah, I'd love you to cook. I'm tired and really I just want to roll into bed. I'm going to go find him and make sure he's not dying of monogamy and sexual repression..."

A little snort was her answer.

"Oh, and... I missed you, too," she said, wrapping her arms around Cor's waist and giving him a light kiss. "And I love you... and I'm seriously considering if I should take a stand on shaving... scruffy is a good look for you."

Iris traded a few softer kisses with Cor before she left him to finish up at work and went to find Gladdy. He was at the farms near the plant, and she had a quick check up with him and was more than a bit terrified by the fact that when she tried to tease him about Heather he just... took it, a little blushing, but far from his usual brash cockiness he seemed to not want to brag about it.

She was pretty impressed and also just a little confused and terrified, but she was alright with that. If Gladdy was going to be pretty decent and Heather was going to get a pretty decent guy in the bargain, Iris was on board with it.

Her evening she spent snuggled on Cor's couch eating some leftover stew that he had and then the two of them read a bit, listened to the radio, and made out a bit before Iris was pretty sure she just fell over on him... but she woke up the next morning curled up with him, so that was a pretty alright way to live.

The two of them even managed to have a nice evening together three days later when Gladdy and Heather went out for dinner, and they took James on a spin through the market place for shaved ice and the three of them piled into Iris's room while James made suggestion after suggestion on what would make a pillow 'perfect'. In the end he wound up with a quickly finished black chocobo pillow, really just a black pillow with a beak and eyes sewed on, but as far as James was concerned it was perfect.

Iris let him curl up on the couch, hugging the pillow close while she and Cor sat at the kitchen table. Iris couldn't help but feel really fond of him, she knew he wasn't always adorable but... he was sweet.

"I'm pretty sure I know that look," Cor said after James had started to snore lightly.

"What?" She asked, glancing back to him.

"Kids."

"Oh..." She couldn't exactly deny she wasn't thinking it, but she wasn't really thinking about it either. "I dunno... Aranea's due in... three months?"

"Thereabouts," Cor answered.

"I'm not _thinking_ about it... but... I mean we already talked about it, we both want kids, just not in the short term... are _you_ thinking about it?" She asked, because they'd largely agreed to leave it for now.

"Maybe I am..." He said, glancing over to where James was sleeping, but he shook his head just after. "I don't know... a little. I think a part of me is worried you will want kids sooner than I do."

"Sooner?" Iris had to laugh at that. "Cor, I'm going to want at least a year or two of you all to myself, and then we still have all the same problems that Ignis and Aranea do, time in the field... the damn dark... it's not like I'm going to be happy benching myself and knowing that means you're going to be going out into the dark without me..."

A part of her was wondering if she'd ever feel ready while the dark was still all around them, but it had been two years of darkness and although Ignis had hardly set a date for it, he was fairly certain they would see no end of it any time soon.

"James is sweet, and it's easy to feel a little... 'aww, I want one', but it's so much more than that and there's going to be a lot more at play than an impulse." She was still young, really too young to be thinking about kids. "And, hey, sometimes I feel the same way. I know Aranea being a good bit older than Ignis caused some friction. When I'm Ignis's age you'll be... fifty five."

Cor winced at that, and Iris was pretty sure that as much as he didn't want to think about it, he'd done that math as well.

"So I guess... just keep talking about it. Do you want kids right now?"

"No," he answered immediately.

"Me neither," she answered. "Done. Maybe in... two years?"

He shrugged in a sort of way that said 'maybe'.

"Good talk, let's do it again sometime," she answered, and she reached out and took his hand.

"He _is_ cute though..."

Iris snorted. "For now... aunt and uncle?"

They turned the radio on low and Cor read while Iris did some plotting and planning for her new Chris-approved baby stuff. Gladdy finally ended up back home, Heather in tow, and the two of them scooped up James and Iris happily took the surreptitious thumbs up that Heather gave them, happy to know it had been a nice evening.

Iris had four gloriously Gladdy-pestering free days until he returned to form. She was in the middle of trying to decide what the hell she wanted to do with all the cornmeal she'd bought without much thinking about it when Gladdy wrapped an arm over her shoulder and lead with:

"So, when do I get to meet this guy?"

"Hrm?" She hadn't even told Gladdy she was seeing anyone, but... well she supposed it was pretty obvious when he'd caught her coming in the front door rather than out of her room early in the morning.

The innocent act lasted another few minutes before she finally decided that she was probably not getting out of this and almost two months of dating probably meant she and Cor would eventually need to face the music.

"He's... a guy. You're not going to be a fan."

"Iris," he sighed. "I mean... maybe I'll think you can do better but that better not mean he's a bad guy..."

"The best," Iris assured him. "Just... I don't want you dismissing him. I love him, it's... the real deal."

"Well... if he's 'the real deal' then I'm going to have to meet him eventually, right?" She cursed her brother's reasonableness. "And I won't scare him off."

"I know," she said, because if there was one thing she was sure of... Cor wasn't going to get run off by Gladdy no matter how hard he might try. "Fine, I'll invite him for dinner."

After a few moments she pulled out her phone and dialed Cor.

"A phone call?" He asked, picking up on the third ring. "To what do I owe the pleasure."

"Not allowed to call my boyfriend to invite him to a family dinner?" She asked, the question telling him pretty much all he needed to know. "Gladdy even promised to be nice and not scare you off."

Cor snorted. "Want me to bring anything?"

"Whatever you'd like, I have to figure out how to cornmeal."

"Be over in a minute," he assured her.

The knock came in less than a minute, Cor had obviously been at home, not at the office or out, and Gladdy opened the door and Iris waited for the fisticuffs.

"Oh, hey Cor."

Iris frowned at the incredibly casual hello considered Iris had thought that Gladdy would be none too pleased about the boyfriend... and then went back to the dinner and decided she'd try one of the cooking styles for it that they had in Accordo with water and some milk. Antoni had introduced her to it, and she was eager to give it a try.

"Did you need something? Gonna have a family dinner in tonight." Gladdy asked a moment later, and Iris looked over to where she caught Cor looking very bemused.

Oh, apparently Cor was such a ridiculous option for boyfriend that Gladdy had just assumed he had dropped by to say hello. Iris snorted.

"I know," Cor answered a moment later. "I was invited."

 _That_ got the reaction she'd expected. "What the fuck is wrong with you?!"

"Lots of things," Iris answered, giving Cor a bright smile. "But being late for dinner isn't one of them. What'd you bring?"

"Pinkshrimp," he answered, and after a moment he stepped through Gladdy's space and into the kitchen where he deposited them and leaned against the refrigerator for a moment. "I was going to try to do something with herb butter tomorrow, but I figured you'd do better if you hadn't planned something yet."

"Trying something new, hopefully won't ruin them..." She sighed, and then decided that tomatoes were on the menu, and gave Cor's side a slight whack which got him to move away from the refrigerator and she pulled out tomatoes and two beers, which she handed over to Cor. "Here, have some beers and glare at each other for a little bit, I have to finish dinner."

Cor took them, and then handed one over to Gladdy, and took his usual seat at the small dining table just outside of the kitchen. The silence behind her was deafening, and after a few moments she glanced to see that Gladdy definitely looked murderous and Cor was doing his best to look bland. He was likely helped by the fact that Gladdy would have had an exceptionally hard time kicking his ass and that he knew Iris loved him.

"So, Cor," she said, getting to work on what she hoped would be an adequate sauce. "How long have you and Iris been dating?"

Cor, of course, snorted, but he turned towards Gladdy and answered. "Eight weeks, of course, we've known each other longer."

Her brother, of course, sat there looking annoyed and stone like. Iris decided to shy away from the fact that Cor had known her since she was a child, even if that was true. It gave him enough trouble without Gladdy picking at it. It just... was.

"Cute story?" She suggested. "When did you know you were madly in love with Iris?"

"Every day?" Cor answered.

"Oh, you're not fair," she said, and headed over to grab him around the shoulders and press a kiss to his cheek. "Be good."

"Gladio." Cor paused, thinking, probably. "I understand you might be... skeptical."

"You've been a family friend since we were kids," Gladdy answered, cut him off really. "I can't believe you'd--"

"Honestly? When I realized I had feelings for your sister I was horrified." Iris winced, because that... well she _knew_ that, but to hear it said like that was a little distressing. "You're right, I've been a family friend for years, and... sometimes I think how horrified your father would be... but I did fall in love with your sister, I ignored it for months, and when she asked me to consider dating her... I strongly considered saying no."

That Iris hadn't known, but it did make sense. She tried to focus on dinner, not on what Cor was saying, but she listened with a half an ear as he... well he was honest. Iris knew he loved her, knew he had trouble with that on some days, and knew that there was nothing she could do that would make that worry and fear lessen.

"As for... cute stories? When Iris asked me to date her, I was so confused by the idea that she would want to that I didn't say anything, she thought I was trying to let her down gently and she headed off... almost in tears."

"I did _not_ cry!" Iris said.

"I said _almost_!" He shot back, turning around and she stuck her tongue out and he answered almost immediately in kind. "I thought she was crying. It took me a few minutes and I realized I was an insensitive ass. I started sending texts."

"I still have them," she said. "'That was insensitive', I think that's my favorite."

"Why is _that_ your favorite?"

"Because it's the most you, completely and totally deadpan in the face of... emotion."

He snorted, but he smiled after that, before turning back to Gladdy. "So I'm thinking I've hurt your sister, that she's run off and is crying somewhere, that I'll never earn her trust again... meanwhile she's north of town beating the shit out of an imp and grenade offensive and has absolutely no time to worry about 'does Cor like me', and she gave me shit about that damn text all the way back to HQ."

"He deserved it," Iris said, finally deciding that the cornmeal didn't look disgusting. "He broke my poor heart." After a few moments of Cor giving her the stink eye, Iris came over and placed a hand on the back of his neck before looking over at Gladdy again. He looked very annoyed, very unhappy, and not at all charmed. Iris went over to her brother and gave him a little frown before she gave a gentle tug on his ponytail. "Gladdy, I do love him, and it's not like he seduced me or something."

"I... I don't like it." That was what Gladdy finally decided to say, and Iris knew she was asking a lot from him but...

"You've set me up with guys in their late twenties," she said. "You've set me up with a guy who was a complete butt... and a guy who dumped me the second I went out of town. Cor's sweet and supportive and... really hot, so I know it's hard but pretend for a moment he's just a guy I work with... get to know him. I know it's not going to be easy, but you wanted to meet my boyfriend, here he is."

She gave her brother a quick kiss on the forehead and then returned to her cooking.

Cor didn't add anything after that, and Iris considering putting on some music just to break the silence, but she finally heard Gladdy clear his throat. "Eight weeks?"

"Yeah, and half of that was Iris out in Hammerhead, but we chatted at least."

Iris flushed at the memory of the 'chatting' they had done. Some of it had been business at least, the rest was borderline raunchy, to say nothing of how much they had defiled their mutual office when she got home.

"How--" Gladdy seemed to fumble around for his words, and Iris supposed that was really all she could ask for at the moment. "How's that work with you working together and dating?"

"It's... interesting," Cor said after a few moments, probably hiding behind his beer like he did when he didn't want to answer quickly. "We usually take a few days a week to do our own things. With the occasional exceptions I think we're also... distant on the job. You can't fight with a clouded mind, I expect her to make the best choices for the circumstance regardless of personal feelings."

"There he goes," she said. "Being super romantic."

Cor snorted, and she was glad to hear Gladdy added his own snort of something like amusement. She and Cor weren't really romantic on that front. She knew Cor loved her, knew that they meant the world to each other, but a few other things meant the world too. That was sort of part of loving each other, she supposed, that they loved the job and Lestallum and Lucis more... everyone relied on them.

Iris took a few more minutes to work on dinner, and it seemed like Gladdy was content to pepper Cor with some of the questions that the two of them did talk about, kids, marriage, the future, love, that sort of thing... eventually Iris brought over the dishes and set them in front of the boys before bringing over her own meal.

"I think it's alright. Gladdy, I expect you to be nice and lie to me, Cor you can tell the truth."

She then settled in and pressed her thigh against Cor's and the two of them relaxed into each other before they dug in.

"What's in the cornmeal?"

"It's just water and some milk, it's like... creamy corn porridge, it's Altissian."

"Thought I recognized the style. I like it, I think you can fry it, too..."

That lead into their usual back and forth over spices and cooking, and talking about Antoni and his boyfriend. It was Soren's recipe and Iris had been eager to try it out. A month out in the wilds and you start swapping recipes to keep from missing the guy waiting for you back home, that was just sort of how it was.

Gladdy eventually got another word in, he liked the shrimp, and after a little more glowering he apparently decided that he wasn't going to be a total ass about her dating Cor. That seemed like a win.

"I'm going to get the dishes and get out of your hair," Cor said after another long stretch of silence.

"You don't ha--"

He was up and stealing the plates before she could finish her protest, and really she couldn't protest, not when Cor was going to just do the dishes and be awesome about it.

It was only after Cor finished the dishes, pressed a kiss to her jaw, and headed out that her brother seemed to unwind and still have no idea what he wanted to say.

"See why I didn't tell you?" She asked.

"Yes..." He sighed, and ran a hand over his hair and looked irritated. "He's... old enough to be your father."

"You act like I don't know, you act like he didn't say that when we talked about dating. A lot of the doubts you have... Gladdy we have them too, but we both decided it was worth trying it out. I think even if we don't work out... it's too important that we work as friends for us to have it all go completely to shit. It's not perfect, but we don't really date at work..." She flushed, thinking about a few days before. "Usually."

Gladdy made a face, the face of 'I don't want to know why you made that face', but after a little while to think he seemed to decide it wasn't... hideous, just not good. "I also worry he's taking advantage of you."

That did irritate her a bit, and she sighed. "Look, Gladdy, I had to _beg_ him to do more than kissing, we... we haven't even had sex yet, and that's because I told him I wasn't ready for that yet so we don't. You can make that a bad thing, maybe, if you're intent on twisting it, but just like you _don't_ like that Cor's known us forever, you know Cor, and you can't tell me that he's some huge ass who takes advantage of people."

He sighed, and he shook his head, and Iris knew she'd won at least that part of her argument. "I... I'll try to... I can't even say I'll try to get to know him, I know him... he's a great guy. I just don't want him dating my sister!"

"I... kinda want him dating me, Gladdy," she answered, trying to make light of it, make it a little joke, but the truth was she loved Cor, and even if her brother's disapproval would sting, she knew she would have to talk him around, not give up on Cor. "I know it's weird but it's not like we pretend there's no problem. We talk a lot... and he really does feel guilty for falling for me, so please don't make it worse."

It took weeks to get him to the point where he was comfortable with wanting her, and a lot of texting and cajoling before he was happy with admitting he took pleasure in her body. The truth was Cor was struggling through the sort of repression that Aranea and Gladdy both had tried to keep her from feeling.

"So it's a big mess and I love him anyway... and I bet you know that feeling."

That made Gladdy nod and give her his own shy smile. "I just don't see being happy about this... you could do a lot better."

Iris made a frustrated noise, because it always seemed to come to that. Maybe she could... but she just didn't want to. "Just... try please, Gladdy?"

He was making a very unhappy face, but he did nod after that.

Cor greeted her with a soft kiss and a cup of tea the next morning. "How big an ass was he?"

"He went over to Heather's to complain and she told him that she bet you were amazing in bed," Iris answered with a giggle.

"Poor boy. My good fortune, I’m glad she didn’t disapprove... I worried she would be upset with me." He then settled in to check the overnight reports Iris had sorted. "Still wanna go out tonight?"

"Up to you," she answered. "I've got some sewing but it can wait."

They had morning training, and Iris spent some time stretching and showering and returned to the office. After only a few minutes of time to settle, they were interrupted by a knock on the door. It usually boded poorly, but the knock was polite and Cor got the door, Talcott came in a moment later carrying what looked to be a huge basket of stuff.

"You've got an admirer, Lady Iris!" He said, dropping the basket off and then leaving her with it, completely oblivious to Iris's surprise and happiness at the idea that Cor had bothered.

That was... super sweet, and she beamed over at Cor. "You shouldn't have!"

"I... didn't?" He said. Cor looked quite confused himself.

"Um..." Iris didn't know what to say to that. She didn't really expect huge gifts from Cor, but what had been a pleasant surprise was now a bit disconcerting. She looked for a card or something. She was a bit of a novice at romantic gifts, but after a bit of searching she found the neat little cluster of orange blossoms and sighed. "From Justin."

Underneath the blooms was a note, which had her name in neat penmanship.

"I..." She turned the note over and opened it up. It was simple and to the point: he missed her and he wanted her back. A quick glance at the basket found fruit and veggies... "What the hell do I do with this?!"

That made Cor snort. "Well assuming that's what I think it is..."

"Get back together gift, yeah."

"It's yours, whatever you want."

"But..." She glowered at it, almost a week's worth of fruit and vegetable rations, even for her, which meant it was way more than that for most people. "I can't believe he wasted this much food on me!"

"Well, I know what not to get you," Cor said, coming to look at the basket with her. "... Six, that is a lot."

"See!" She started to look through the various stuff and frowned, taking out bits and finding she was more and more embarrassed by the whole thing. Three oranges, a melon, broccoli, endive, carrots, a carton of strawberries... herb cheese... "I actually don't really like broccoli..." She knew it was fine, it wasn't like she hated it, she just didn't go out of her way for it. "Do I need to... send a note or something?"

Iris spent her next hour or so being confused about the whole basket fiasco, and then a slight amount of guilt about the whole thing she split an orange with Cor and then glowered at the basket again.

"This wouldn't happen if people knew we were dating," Iris said, finally, because that was what she'd decided in the last hour or so was that she was embarrassed by getting a gift she couldn't even think about accepting with a clean conscience, and she couldn't even be upset at Justin for sending it because he couldn't have known. "Ugh, but people are going to be butts..."

Cor answered by reaching out and she met his hand and squeezed.

"Of course, people were going to be asses regardless," she continued, it wasn't usually a huge deal, but she knew that her sex life was the subject of gossip no matter how hard Cor tried to keep it from reaching her. People could be catty and petty and she _knew_ that... "If I have to hear about how I can do better one more time I'm going to scream."

When she looked over to Cor she saw a hint of it on his face and she fixed him with a firm, irritated gaze. At least he smiled after that, and gave her hand a quick tug, bringing her over to him and she took a place on his lap and then curled against him.

"I'm waiting for Monica to threaten my life," Cor said after that, running his hands along Iris's thigh. "Or my balls."

"I like your balls," Iris answered and giggled when he snorted in response. "I'll set her straight. I'm gonna... text Justin."

She sighed and sent a: 'thanks, but I'm seeing someone' to Justin, and then for good measure sent a message to Prompto and Aranea to tell them she and Cor were dating, and then a quick text to Heather that she and Cor weren't going to keep the relationship quiet, which got her: 'Oh. Em. Gee. I bet he's really sweet!', 'freak in bed?', and 'congrats, send him to me if he needs a straightening out', and she sent off various affirmatives.

In the end, it was probably her fault for trying to keep some level of distance from Cor. The first few weeks it was obvious, the two of them wanting to feel each other out, and while some random guy didn't take any special handling, Cor and Iris had both wanted to make certain that things went well with each other.

"You're taking me out, and we're acting like a couple," Iris insisted a few minutes later.

"Hmmmmm..." Cor leaned in and pressed a kiss to her nose, and then her lips, before he kissed at her throat. "What's in it for me?" He teased.

"Happy girlfriend?" She offered.

"I suppose that'll do." He took a few moments to look at her, and run a hand along her thigh and knee, and Iris felt like he was thinking, and trying to decide what to say. "I... I know you focus on the fact that Gladio seems intent on convincing you you could do better, or that I sometimes say the same. That's not going to suddenly get better."

She knew what Cor was saying, he always warned her when something was going to go straight to hell, although it usually involved daemons, not... love. She reached up and pressed her hands to his cheeks, cupping his face gently, and then looking into his eyes, always bright blue, and right now they were tentative.

"I know it doesn't fix much of anything," she said, and she brushed her thumbs over his lips, just feeling his face, and enjoying the closeness. "Everyone else in Lestallum can wonder and doubt and say whatever they want... as long as you believe that you're the only one for me, I don't care."

"Believing it more every day," he said. Not quite what she wanted, but she'd take it. Like everything else in their relationship, it was a work in progress. "I'm an old fool, no matter what anyone else says... but I'm the old fool who gets to have you by my side, so I'm alright with that."

She knew she wasn't going to change his mind, not today, maybe in a few years, she was going to make certain he believed her by then.

.epilogue.

Cor dozed lazily in anticipation of an alarm. If he was truly a considerate lover he would have turned off the alarm and gotten out of bed early, but Iris was curled against him and he didn't feel like giving that up just yet. The prickle of danger in his spine had his eyes open in an instant, and he tensed in anticipation of--

"DRAGOON DIVE!!!"

He rolled in time to catch Ricard Scientia's knee and the balled fists that were coming down overhead, before he spun the boy and pushed him down hard against the mattress of his bed.

"First," he said, voice calm as he looked down into the wide green eyes of his four year old adversary. It was clear the boy thought he had had one up on his Uncle Cor, and just as clearly he realized what thousands of Crownsguard recruits had over the years: Uncle Cor was fucking scary. "You don't shout your attacks like some second rate Justice Monsters villain. Second, if you wake--"

Too late. Sorrel started to bawl.

"That's it," he said, slightly irritated to have his morning interrupted by both an over-energetic four year old and a bawling seven month old. "Out the window."

Cor then casually walked out onto the balcony of his and Iris's remodeled apartment and threw Ricard over the railing before he walked inside again.

"Did you just throw our nephew off the second story balcony?" Iris asked, slowly climbing out of bed and fumbling towards their son.

"If he can't survive it's really just the way of things," he answered. Besides, the kid had plenty of warning and they'd been practicing worse falls for months.

"I'm waiting for how you explain that one to Ignis and Aranea," she said, laughing, before she began the laborious process of getting their son to shush for five minutes.

"Sorry, I was going to let you sleep in."

Iris gave him her 'a likely story' look and Cor pulled on jeans and headed downstairs and out into the courtyard where Ricard was whooping.

Cor held up a hand with five fingers and circled it around. "Add five for waking the baby and five more for getting caught."

"I can't count that high, Uncle Cor," Ricard answered, apparently thinking he was clever.

"Skimping on math lessons? I guess I'll let your dad know..."

"Fifteen gottagobye."

Cor relaxed against the wall of the apartment and watched his nephew circuit. Iris came a minute or so later and handed over a cup of tea, and then settled Sorrel to her shoulder. Cor looked at his son and he responded with a sleepy yawn. Cor reached out and fluffed his son’s dark brown hair.

"Someday he is going to punch you in the balls and you'll have no one but yourself to blame," Iris said with a chuckle.

"I will deserve it," he answered. "For getting slow."

He didn’t like to think about getting slower, but he couldn’t deny he was getting older. He also couldn’t deny that Iris kept him younger than he would have thought possible. Less time out drinking, more time spent training recruits, and a great deal more time spent in bed with an enthusiastic and energetic younger woman was good for him.

Iris was good for him. He liked to think he was good for her too, but he could hardly claim credit for the way she’d continued to grow into an unbelievably confident woman. Years of pushing herself to fill her father’s shoes had finally found her fitting in those shoes and with far more confidence and an even more level head than Clarus had ever possessed.

She had taken a city - admittedly smaller than Insomnia, yet still large - and seen to it that it survived the crush of more refugees than the original city population. Challenges were met with potential solutions and Iris applied brute force and subtlety in equal force to make that solution reality... 

"You’ve got a look," Iris said, looking over at him.

"It’s my ‘Six, she’s amazing’ look," Cor answered.

"One of my favorites," she answered, and after a few moments she settled in at their stoop and shifted Sorrel so he could watch Ricard, and then patted the stoop beside her.

Cor sat, and he reached out to tangle their fingers together. A moment later he tilted her hand to show her the Amicitia crest that rested on her finger. "Just thinking about that."

She’d only recently taken to wearing it, still hesitant in her position, but Cor couldn’t deny that he loved her all the more for finally pushing through the last of her self-doubts that she was worthy to stand where she did. "Ah. Well, it had been long enough, figure I should own it. Everything’s always in flux, always changing... I guess I kept thinking ‘the dark will end and it won’t be necessary’ or something stupid like that."

"It’s not stupid," he answered, leaning in so he could press a kiss to her shoulder. "It’s hopeful... and it’s one of the reasons you’re a Captain that the men would follow to the gates of hell if you commanded it."

"Well, speaking of the gates of hell, I’m going to go cook breakfast and try to get Ricard to calm down."

Cor smiled. "Well, you’re awake, do you want to take the early shift? I’ll bring the kids in in a few hours?"

Iris gave him the look, the ‘I love you, you’re the best’ look, and then nodded before handing over Sorrel, and walking into the apartment.

Ricard came up after that, panting. "I’m done, Uncle Cor."

"Don’t forget the extra one for being a smartass," he said. The boy groaned, and Cor smiled a bit, because whether it was his ‘inability’ to add, or skimping on one of the circuits that Cor knew he must have, the boy knew he was a smartass. He also knew that the boy’s legs would _just_ about be ready to go to jelly from the run. It might make him manageable for the next hour. "Time’s wasting."

He left, and Cor stood to head into the kitchen and get to work on breakfast while Iris changed into her work clothes. 

She returned a bit later dressed in her Hunter uniform, and she took Cor’s silently offered oatmeal, eating her way through it slowly. After she finished, she gave Sorrel a kiss on the forehead and Ricard a pat on the head before she headed off to work to deal with whatever fire had cropped up overnight.

And the next one.

And the next one.

And he never would mind as long as Iris let him stand by her side until the Dawn.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks to y'all who stuck around and left amazing comments. Made me feel pretty alright about sailing the little Cor/Iris dingy. Hope you enjoyed!


End file.
